The Homecoming Poem by Randall Livingston

I remember at the age of eighteen that
nothing seemed to make sense.
The landscape was mean,
and I was just dense.
I tried checking out but couldn't get it right.
Slit my wrist in the middle of night.
Ended up making a bloody mess.
Bandaged myself up and
mopped up the rest.
Not a soul noticed I was invisible at the time.
Nothing to be proud of,
The badge is all mine.
Packed off to New York in the middle of night.
There was someone there that made me
feel right.
I wintered there, got me a job.
Started getting my mojo back, feeling the sun.
Got the itch it. It was time to move on.
Made my way home. There weren't horns and drums.
Found out fast I wasn't the prodigal son.
I won't forget the verbal beating or me
retreating inside myself.
Why'd I come home.
Should have stayed on the roam.
There's value in anonymity.
The past belongs to you.
No one saying what to be or what to do.
I stay in this city though it doesn't
have a hold on me.
You cant ever go home again,
that's the way it's supposed to be.
Now forty years later
I find I'm just me. Got nothing to prove.
I guess that I'm free.
The marks still show where the shackles
used to be.
Deep. Indelible.

- R -