Bookend Town

"Viroqua is...Viroqua.  It's cute and summer-y and very green.  It is quiet and I love it, but.  It feels terribly small.  I feel stuck. I know for a fact that I am made for bigger things than this little town.  I yearn to see places I have never known, I need adventure on a grand scale.  I want things to be blown out of proportion, I want the dramatic and the crazy and the messy beautiful.  I need to experience life as it is, uncut and real and raw.  This town is a beautiful place to grow up, and maybe it's the place to grow old, but it's not made for my life in-between.  It's a bookend town, the two perfect, sweet bookends on a life."

The above paragraph is an excerpt from a letter that I sent to a friend of mine.  This part I chose is the edited and orderly version of this crazy wanderlust I have been feeling lately.  I finally took the time to sit down and put that feeling into words and this is what was born. A new term: Bookend Town.

Nicotine

You ask me
What you mean            to me

How do I riddle this?

My words are as empty and used up as the oil drums around me,
scattered like toys in a child's nursery.

Signs warn faceless men of kerosene,
Alarms,
Fire hazards.

Your eyes warn me to stay close.

City hall, pall mall, nicotine.
Your words are an unseen drug.