There lives in each of us a private terror,
which drives us through the rain
to a truck stop or a corner bar
on some pot-holed highway
on the edge of a broken-down town,
where bravery is bought and sold,
bargained for in dingy bathrooms
or at the bottom of many bottles.
We walk through the night
with creatures just like us,
holding our fear in silent camaraderie,
pretending everything's alright,
that our laughter is enough to carry us
through construction zones and
all night diners, where we steal
courage to proclaim our angelic visions
in the early morning hours.
Under bugs trapped in fluorescent lights,
while spray-tanned girls in high heeled shoes
giggle in the back booth at their imagined rebellion,
our pauses and gaps and omissions
confessed only in drunkenness,
when most of the world is sleeping,
tell the real story of who we are,
and who we are too afraid to be.
Shannon McMorland Foley
