Undone

Last Saturday I made 
a carrot cake in a green glass 
pan with a chip out of the side. 

We are never really all here. 
We walk through days
with our heads in some
deserted cabin we once discovered 
on the rocky shore of Maine, 
or in the gutter beside a street lamp 
in a city we once longed for. 

What I mean to say is,
we are pieces. 
What I mean is,
we don't always have to know
what we want. 

The year I turned fifteen
I was determined to buy 
a Greyhound ticket and travel south. 
It didn't matter how far I got 
or how long it took,
only that I was moving
towards the light 
and not away from it. 

I never packed the bag.
I never bought the trip.

I am still sitting here, 
with a paper bag of broken glass 
and an unfinished poem 
on a Thursday night
that was never meant to come.