Man on the Overpass (2021; Poetry)

Oh, Man on the Overpass

Cloaked in black, face sunken in your hood

Eyes shielded by your brim, cigarette dangling from your fingertips

You are a specter, a shadow behind the chain link fence

I have a question I must ask:

By what devices

Do you find yourself gazing onto the highway?

Is your soul in tatters, torn apart by loss?

Is it a tremendous heartbreak that brings you to this precipe?

Or perhaps it is a more subtle sadness

A dull depression

A funeral for the gutter your life is in

Maybe it is a little more wistful

Perhaps you are recalling your childhood with distant longing

Or even reliving ancient memories in that very spot

Yet, this all may not be so

And you are not there by melancholy

But by malice

Are you a delinquent, poised to spit on the buzzing cars beneath?

Might you toss your cancer stick onto the windshield of an unsuspecting driver?

Worse yet, are you a psychopath

Whose sick mind is excited to get its kicks?

Is there a slab of rock by your feet

You are ready to launch at the traffic, like a catapult smiting its foes?

And when the carnage is finished, a smile will be plastered across your face

However, neither might be the case

Maybe you are just on a long walk, stopping to take in the air and get your fix

Aimlessly hurdling through the evening

With little rhyme or reason on why you chose this particular spot

Is it that there is no great motive, other than a convenient place to fill your lungs with tobacco?

It is unfortunate

The answers I seek will never be revealed

As I will pass under you, never to see your silhouette again

You will but remain a fading picture in my mind

And I, to you

Will be nothing