How Long

Tomorrow ticks

On the intersection of heart

And backbone

You asked how long

I was maybe sixteen

Thirty sounded okay

Don’t know what to say

it was a life time away

Answered with a cliché

The day splits the night

All I want is to play

Tomorrow arrived

That question came again

Touching thirty this time

too drunk to stay on the floor

Cryptic cliché was the answer

I hate the dawn

The silence before the sun looks

Almost as if the earth is taking a breath

Why was not voiced

But it was in your eyes

So we took a walk

On the street made of ice

Past that intersection of make believe

We walked till that ice was something else

Working the kryptonite out

Its control of a soul

A journey to stand up

And face a new fear

Evolutionary irony

That first question

So many years ago

Was hard to see past the day

A walk till the ice was something else

Slowly consciousness dawned

Footsteps as the sun crests

Motor cycle ripped apart

Mangled all about

As another ticks down

I put my thumb out

And hitched back to town

Now I ask how long