The Road Not Taken

_I hitchhiked home from the Temple that night
some thirty years ago now
and this old, fat guy
who picked me up
told me I could have a job
that would take me around the world
if we could sleep together the whole time.
I stayed hip through the proposition, though,
I said it would be something new for me
(which was actually true at the time),
and I made him let me off at the corner
in Glencoe, Illinois.
…….
If he had been any younger,
or even had average looks,
I would have said yes,
Because I remember that night,
I was so tired of being alone
that suicide felt like a good thing,
even if it was the slow kind.

Anyway, I took another road
and ended up married, with children.
And there was no pool of blood
in the morning papers.
I learned to bleed slowly little by little,
without making a mess.

Anthony A. Lee_

Don’t make a fucking mess.