Chris Offutt - The Same River Twice pg. 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 had been "Always Forward," but that had taken me to a swamp and reduced me to a bus. Forward had become backwards. 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 Seminol'e 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.