THE ROAD

It stretches,

miles into nothing

A single point,

of tar and gravel

pulled into one tiny point

in the future

Since the tires,

Pull, like a treadmill

I sometimes wonder

how the men working

stay in the same place…or if they do?

The sun is hot,

as it filters through

the closed windows

the sky fades,

to orange

The moon is cold,

as it chills the glass

the sky turns,

black

The future becomes

the present

Nothing constricts

The tar and gravel

are pushed into

the present

Aching muscles

call my bed

the things

can wait

I am home

I like to work. I have had a job continuously since I was 12. It started with the family and their farm and them moved on to the food service industry. I worked as a dishwasher at a Mexican Restaurant in Beaver for 4 years before moving on to work full time at a truck stop doing the graveyard “thing”.
Currently I work at Convergys as an Associate Trainer, I work upwards of 50 hours per week and I go to school full time. I have been in my position as a trainer since October of last year, making this coming month my 1 year anniversary.

A lizard is lunging back and forward on a rock. It has been years since I have seen a lizard, what a subtle un-looked-for surprise. Just sitting here watching the jerky movements that he makes as he looks for the shadiest place under the sage brush to lay.
Ever warily, he scans, right to left and back. He quickly moves under a branch of the bush when I shift sitting positions. Seeing him there, hiding, in the bushes takes me back to long days in the summer when I was a child.
As child I loved the outdoors one of my favorite past times was spending long hours riding my bicycle with my friend to his farm. The heat swept over me then as it does now, sweating long hours up to the farm 3 miles away. Some days we would get lucky and get to take his Dad’s four wheeler.
Once we were at the farm there was always a contest to see who could catch the most lizards without losing any pieces. As any lizard expert knows, they throw their tails when they are frightened to trick their predators. We, being bright children, were only tricked a couple of times.
The lizard moves back to a hole in the brush allowing me a better visual, I snap back. Things have changed, I no longer enjoy being outside the heat irritates me and reminds me of things I could be doing back in civilization.
I am surprised that my eyes are still sharp enough to, without glasses, see a lizard in the brush.

The dense undergrowth covers the bottom of the sign. The uneven ground is littered with boulder size rocks, that press the foliage higher and higher in its never ending climb towards the sky. The sign is on the side of a great brick fortress that seems to grow in straight orangish, red lines from the rocky, uneven ground. The tree branches hang past the top of my window obscuring the sign even further so that there is just enough visibility to read “General Classrooms”.