Purgatory Between Job Titles

Long I linger in listless languor and lassitude

With no one near enough to me to note this attitude

My sky never changes, night or day

No magic sun-up or down hours in all this gray

For places I haven’t been I harbor nostalgia

And my world is a nomad’s ocean with no rock of Gibraltar

This town is easier to love from places less green

Often my soul cannot settle unless I get in the car and speed

Only then can I escape from depression’s bubble

Into the light that exists at the end of the tunnel

Here I am, 28 and still I wait to claim my fate

To start my real life and be something great

To use my heart and mind instead of slave away

At a career that got shoved like broccoli onto my plate

But I learned to love in a way like an acquired taste

It’s a notch on my belt now, the ironwork trade

And now I look at my college degree on my desk

And I hang my hard hat in the hall on the wall for a rest

These long in-between days are blank

With a new Chapter starting on the next page

And I’m much more lonely than one might guess

But certainly not enough to settle for less

My friendships are needles I found in haystacks

Where I never found relationships but often I’m glad

Because what can compare to having the whole world before me

Where I can flip coins if I want to and make it my own story

Spice it up without getting in trouble if it gets boring

To have all my time to adore my daughter back like she adores me

So why the long hours of gray sky and restless nights

I’m just a bird ready to pack her nest and take flight

A longing for the future that has made my days idle

A purgatory between job titles