I suppose something has to be good,
the whole street is my parking place.
No longer shy or shameful of whom I’ve become,
I park my “flashy” car in front of your thrift store.
Still before I can open my door,
Old feelings creep onto me like a spider at night’s height.
This dusty small Midwest town should be swept away.

To my left that dingy diner sits,
like a chasm filled with the gloom of my youth.
Bacon, lettuce, tomato, chips, and a coke,
I ate that meal alone, on a greased laced table.
Ostracized for the beliefs’ of my widowed mother,
I sat at the orange and brown booth wondering why.
She always went against the majority of the conservative minority.

To my right the sign in her window stands,
“don’t worry your friends won’t see you come in”
From this place I want to stray,
even the shinning summer sun strays away.
Stepping out and into my mom’s store, a bear’s head looms over me.
Staring in her eyes glinting like tinsel, I understand.
She gave me the strength to save a woman like myself from this fate.