A Poem: Where We End Up

I dream of an outdated map

that highlights the location of a friend who lives nearby

but the friend hasn’t lived nearby in over twenty years.

The weight of this realization leads to dry tears

the kind only shed in dreams

but when I awake they’re the real deal.

And now begins another day, too early, too isolated.

They say the world is smaller than ever

but to me it is still too vast, too expansive.

I live in a place where many people have lived all their lives

and down the street are high school buddies

whom they see regularly.

Most of my high school friends don’t even live in the same time zone.

Geneva.  Munich.  Portland.

Might as well be Mars.  Jupiter.  Saturn.

We see each other once every year or two

only to return to the daily grind.

The modes of communication available to us now,

signals that traverse great distances in seconds

are underutilized.

Or unused entirely.

A man of God recently said to me, “It is not what you have or what you do.

It’s where you end up.”

Well then, let me offer a little prayer

for the finish line.

I hope we all end up living on the same block.

There I go again.  Dreaming.