A Small Town

Houses lined up side by side,

neighbors greeting one another,

the yellow bus picks up the schoolchildren;

the city bus picks up the rest

and whisks all off to a week of work

be it in a classroom, an office, a retail store, or restaurant.

Friday nights you can see a movie at the cheap theatres,

Saturday night the young adults go and drink and dance the night away,

Sunday is for church goers

to gather, listen to the sermon and sing hymns

and then prepare for yet another week of work.

The weeks go on, the months go on…

everyone and everything is in their place

in the cycle of life that drones on without cessation,

and has droned on for hundreds of years

and will drone on for hundreds more:

Those who don't fit in completely are tolerated for the most part.

There are the crazies:

the man who yells at bike riders who dare come near the transit station,

the mentally handicapped girl who mutters to herself on the bus,

the lady who carries her doll in a basket and dotes on it as if it were real.

There are others who don't fit in:

the loners,

the rejects,

the losers,

the homos.

The ones who don't see themselves fitting into the cycle of life

that has gone on for centuries,

one of innocent childhood, drunken youth, marriage, children and so on….

The ones who are shunned, ignored,

occasionally taunted by a group

of teenagers driving by in their car.

In a town like this,

everyone knows their place

be it one of belonging or rejection,

inclusion or exclusion…

and so the great cycle goes on

churning, turning and spitting out

those who do not conform.