Mark
The road is never long enough.
I’ve got to find a way to go farther.
One day I’ll keep going and never look back,
Leave school and Stacey and my house and mother behind,
Especially my mother because I can’t stand the way she now
has to speak for my father
So that even though he’s gone his words are still a constant
chatter of disappointment in my ears
Until I feel I’ll scream and never stop screaming so loud
my relatives will hear me all the way across the continents
in Lebanon
And maybe hop on a plane and come over to check out what’s
happening to the only part of the family that moved away to
the new world, the land of opportunity,
Only to find a two-bedroom apartment in an old run-down
complex with rusty balconies where my mother spends all her time
crying and wondering why my father had to die
Except they won’t find me because I’ll have found the nerve to just
keep driving, all the way west or south, even though the police
will stop me wherever I go because I’m a young guy with
olive-skin and an Arabic last name.
