tears for a stump

I stare at this vacant electric windowpane
trying to tell myself
it's OK
to have patience
to have faith
to believe in the intangible
and the unintelligible jabber of laughter
at two in the morning
in a car going nowhere
and yet everywhere
to the stars
and beyond
i don't want to just be a dream or a fantasy
i don't want to just be a someday or a maybe tomorrow
i don't want to just be a gas station or a roll of toilet paper
i don't want to be a stump
dead and spent after giving it all
in the lost hopes
of sharing a few moments in time
in joy and love and laughter
i don't want to be a corpse
discovered by strangers
stinking up some rented room
half eaten by cats
reeking of piss
rotten meat and cigarettes
nothing more
than a note in a log
a few pages of noises and images
curiously filed away
in an archive for the obscure
a poem left unread
a song left unsung
an album at a garage sale
a painting at a flea market
a novel in the bargain bin
a ghost to watch over
numb hunched shoulders
of a librarian
that cries alone over the road untraveled
the agony of what might have been
the loss of what was
many years from now
shedding battery acid tears
as i once did
for a stump that was once
a tree of laughter
and a home
under the stars