STILL

Timothy Tarkelly

You’re visiting and so you see

the friend who is left, still

in the tired town

you run from, still

wearing the same blue

corporate logo smock, still

here.

“You look great, man,”

he says, he climbs in and you make

familiar circles -- the teenager

routes of main street, country roads,

and the parking lot where you fell

in love and into the wrong crowds. Still,

there are people,

new kids drinking

in pickup beds and swapping

keys and stories (lies) to get them

closer to adulthood.

You watch, shake your head,

remembering how dumb

you were.

He sighs, still

wishing he were one of them.

Beer is in order

and your old bar hasn’t updated

since W., but the faces are older,

tired, looking at you.

“You look like shit,” you don’t say.

You nod at his (non) stories

and pay the tab, still

guilty for ever leaving, and always

waiting to get the hell out of there.