Chris Offutt - The Same River Twice Page 175 lyrics

The bus north was a rumbling gray coffin, evidence of my failure, like a tamed and crippled raptor. We pa**ed a hitchhiker and I ducked, unwilling to see the disdain on his face. Returning to Boston was the first time I'd ever gone back anywhere. For a decade my motto has been “Always Forward,” but that has taken me to a swamp and reduced me to a bus. Forward had become backwards I had six dollars when Shadrack met me in Boston. He kept remembering money he'd borrowed in the past, enough to keep me in cigarettes and food. He also deigned to share with me the towel I'd given him. I found work at a one-hour photo store, producing imagery before the sentiment had time to fade. Since I was the only male and the only white, customers a**umed I was the manager. I quit, tired of people believing lies about me. I wasn't an actor, painter, playwright, or poet. I was just one more nondescript person on the planet. Ponce de Leon died from a Seminole's arrow at age sixty, still trying to live the life of a youth. I would not make his mistake. I moved into an upscale rooming house and wrote some poems