ROAD MOVIE ITALICS :

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We were not taught
    how to love
    or give out properly

    and when you do
    you find out how ugly
    people can become

    you say it’s not their fault
    the way they were taught
    a virus they had caught
    except
    is all that ever true

    perhaps it’s even slander
    as you may never
    get the chance
    to live or love
    that way again

    caught in an avalanche
    that thundered past our door
    a negative maelstrom
    of conflict and responsibility   

    claws of suffocating guilt
    that made you wish
    only you could spit
    not try to escape

    join another army
    take to the bare streets
    rob a grocery store
    tell the parson you are leaving

    and after love is injured
    nothing ever quite
    that awesome same
    just one more bloody stain

    i grew up on the rough side
    of the town rail-track
    where outcasts grew
    aware of pleasant lane

    never quite accepted
    fought for all we earned
    worked for life respect
    it never came easy

    changes of mood and
    philosophy informed us
    culture can be frozen
    wrapped in jargon

    down the road awhile
    we learned how
    to clip fears like gangsters
    follow street hunches

    turn into Joads
    excellent Jim Casys
    Clyde Barrows or
    Bonnie Parkers

    you begin to settle
    put stakes down
    never quite sure
    of the next horizon

    while we are here
    may as well
    live a little
    and pay a lot

    spread out like
    animal skins
    under the stars
    dissected frogs on
    dirty bed linen

    always the train
    rumbling on and after
    through the valley
    to the open sea

    we ain’t never coming back
    we burned bridges
    planted yew trees
    in the name of being free

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©edenbraytoday25.07.2025