When I offered you
A heart full of love
You responded,
like this woman in a toy store
when I tried to spend a two dollar bill
a relative had given me
years ago, when I was young...
Keep it. It may be worth something someday.

Every day, I walk along the same road,
A path of work and play, the route I know.
Every day, I carry the same, tiring load,
A burden of hopes, fears, and woe.

From afar
          it melts into the brush.
Thick, thorny weeds
          ravage its pitiful landscape.
It is forbidding terrain,
          with a pothole landmine and shattered windows,
          looking like gouged eye sockets.

I sit in my bed,
Rain pouring outside,
Sadness of the past flooding through my windows,
The night that my father left,
The day he decided I did not matter,
At a young age,
I was left alone,
On a rainy night like this one,
Hours past,