What Seems the Same

A pacific blue lampshade stands stout,
shedding regular-colored light
on a table that might be found
in any coffee shop in any state,

Specifically, it's lying about
the Starbucks just beyond the light
at Alafaya, eastern-bound,
and Gemini; university's gate,

Bait just like catnip, to this writer's soul,
drowned in caffeine, too many cups sold,
lightly-headed and bound for gold,
all doubts have been prolifically shoaled,

Clouts of soporific nostalgia
delight me past Arcadia,
wind up in Naples, Florida;
four hours of driving like a monster;

A prolific author returns home,
what was home, resembles a light
atop the trees, each one tall and stout,
from a distance, much shorter from up close

Orange County

Waiting with a scrapped tire by my Hyundai Elantra, sipping McDonald's coffee while my friend negotiates the replacement. I compose a poem on my phone as the garage workers change a tire and flow with the lyrics to Insane in the Membrane. Regrettably, we can't find the correct 15-inch tire and the search continues.

Two used tire shops and half an hour later, Wal-Mart's Tire and Lube Express employees facilitate our return into our daily routines at a cost.

That cost was an hour of talking about high school affairs, pining over sixty dollar gaming controllers, a trip across the street to the tobacco shop and back, a walk to the water fountain, and seventy six bucks from the pawn shop.

We gathered our wits and water bottles and begun our strides towards downtown, stopping only to put $10 in my tank and to take a leak. We spoke of our relationships, our friends, and, of course, how the rest of the afternoon would be spent.

When we made it to the slighted Oldsmobile Silhouette, still parked across the street from the IHOP, the day's treacherous wrath faded with every complete rotation of the tire iron. Slowly but surely the sun emerged from behind the clouds and the new tire held the old van upright.

Our conversation thereafter was short-lived as we went our separate ways for the time being; he drove west to drop off a band saw, while I drove east for a well-deserved reprieve amongst my felinish traveling companions, where the memory of today's trials would soon vanish into the murky depths of my subconscious, slumbering until they are needed again. The day, the 20th of August, 2012, one week short of the month I have been in this city, will remain as a constant reminder of the life and place I chose to better myself. This place, Orlando, where wings are allowed to reach their full span, the place I now call home.