An average teenage boy
Clunks along the street
With his Converse laces
Flipping from side to side
Catching under the worn soles

He stops at the bench.
His eyes reflecting the light
Reflecting from the illusionary illumined
Street sign.

BUS STOP

The metal of the seat is green.
The paint is chipping
Worn away by the thousands of
Bodies that have sat on it
Stood on it
Used it
Abused it
Waited there for a hulking
Bus
To come and pick them up
Like littered pieces of trash
Along a citywalk

He sits, too.

He stares at the overhang
Watching how the slight
Moonlight
Bubbles through the metal netting.
Not much good for rain,
He muses.
Not much good for sun, either.
But under the midnight heavens
It works well enough.

He waits, too.

His feet scuff across the pavement
His body stationary while his toes wiggle
Restless
Anxious

He sucks his upper lip into his mouth
Absentmindedly biting
Into the soft flesh
It slips from his teeth as he stares,
Focused straight ahead
Eyes glinting with the curiosity
For a great wide somewhere
A great wide anywhere
That’s not here
In the crowded city
Another piece of trash along the sidewalk.

A car comes rumbling down the street
Its headlights like two wavering
Lanterns of opportunity
This is his chance
This is his door opening
So he stands in a rush
His mind unmoving from those
Lanterns
And stumbles into the street
And his last thought
Cuts off and above from the rest

Here I come.