The Lost Boy

This happened more than fifty years ago.

The Lost Boy

He walked the stony berm
Along the black road.
He could smell its asphalt.
He had his head down
In the icy drizzle of rain
Of the cold October night.
His thoughts in a darkness of his own.
Going home to anger and disappointment.
He was not the boy they wanted
He was the boy they got.
Then in library that was his favorite place
He had finally spoken the girl
Who he had really liked.
She had just stared a moment
Then turned away.
He found himself a lost boy
With no hope of Neverland.
He felt his failure at everything
Without love in his bleak world.
He stepped off the berm
And into the black road
Watching the lights coming
Over the crest of the hill before him.
Suddenly the car crested hill.
It bore down filling his head with light.
Its tire screamed on the pavement

It swerved into the other lane.
A ton of Detroit iron bore down on him
But had swerved sharply
And swept past him
So close it tugged at his clothes
Filling the air with rubber and exhaust.
It rocked to a halt beyond him.
A man screamed in fear and anger
As leaped out of it.
The boy bolted across the road
He fled down a quarter mile up the side street
Where his home was.
He swayed clutching the mailbox crying.
He threw up there at the end of the driveway.
He could not even do that right
He thought bitterly.
When he had regained his composure
He stole into the house
To his solitary bed
He cried himself to sleep.