An empty chair

And she always expected things would get better,
so she waited, staring at the empty chair across the table
until enough dust had gathered in the seat to use her finger
to draw a heart with an arrow through it...but she never did.
 
'Seasons drift through their cycles, oblivious to our presence
whether we play in the leaves, or observe through a window.'
 
She read that somewhere she could not recall, but chances
were it was from a calendar with quotes from the Dalai Lama,
or a greeting card purchased at a drug store; both hung over the
desk next to hers at the office among countless similar items.
 
On the one-way bus trip that had brought her here years before,
a white guy with dreadlocks and fake Rasta accent tried to kiss her.
 
After pushing him away laughter had come in debilitating
waves that crashed over her eyelids and washed down her face,
now loneliness and indecision did the same as she found herself
wondering if he was bald now and wore khakis and had a wife.


Running from had only brought her to somewhere cold
and life had never been as lonely as it was in Minnesota.
 
--by Steve McKennon, 15 September 2015