Mapquest Directions to the Object in This Poem

By Adam Stone

I. Windsor, CT to Sandwich, MA

My father's love was electricity
Pulsing through my mother's body

I was the patch of smoke drifting between them


II. Sandwich, MA to Gill, MA

The impressionist
Tired of channeling the voices in his head
Seeks his own


III. Gill, MA to St Augustine, FL

The sun has not been moved since birth
It will not be moved again until it destroys itself

If I want to feel the warmth of love on my face
It is up to me to close the gap between us

I am stuck in orbit


IV. St Augustine, FL to Centerville, MA

Home is where you long for but strive to get away from
Comfort is your parents' wingspan
Distance is an imagined gap between you and your friends


V. Centerville, MA to North Quincy, MA

I came home sunburnt in winter
Buried myself in snowbanks
Melted everything I touched

Love was not a fall for me
It was a stretch
Someone always out of reach

My friends thrust me into acting
They always liked me best when I wasn't myself


VI. North Quincy, MA to Burlington, VT

I am a barnacle man

Geology has taught me that even continents drift

My rock slid out from under me
Sent me crashing into the waves


VII. Burlington, VT to Dorchester, MA

The vegans would have me starve

I sustained myself on rice and popcorn
My clothes grew so baggy that you couldn't see me in them
I would wander the house disguised as a pile of laundry
Losing myself in the labrynth of marijuana fog that served as the only constant in my roommates' house


VIII. Greyhound Busses & People's Couches

Oh homeless heathen diva with the road beneath your nails
You've got quarters on your eyelids/you've got hound dogs on your trail
You've been lied to in strange bedrooms/confessed your sins on bathroom stalls
You've got your dreams laid out before you but they've got you by the balls

Oh road humping poet with your dreams between your thighs
You've got mama on your breath boy/you've got phonebooths in your eyes
You've got digits in your fingers crying out to touch the tones
In a symphony of comfort on the nearest telephone

Oh cellphone slinging starlet embedded on the road
You've got wish plaque in your pocket from the karma that you're owed
Streetlights struggle to embrace you/grass blades bend beneath your feet
Yet you yearn to travel homeward like a cop who's lost the beat

You've got rhythm in your footsteps/you've got stagger in your stride
There's a divot in your heart now that's at least a mile wide
So you imprint your heart's desires in the holy name of lust
On the nearest passing stranger who has eyes that you can trust

Oh eyes smiling stranger with trust caught between your lashes
You've got smartbombs in your language that could burn a man to ashes
You sing benediction sonnets/you snort lines of cheap romance
You can hold a man's attention like a cobra holds a trance


IX.Dorchester, MA to Mission Hill, MA

The taste of asphalt coils the wire tongue
I dream of my comfortable mattress
But return home to changed locks and friends' couches

I am such a creature of habit
I should not be surprised how easy it is to forge my signature

I dial familiar numbers
Follow familiar streets
End at the beginning


X. Mission Hill, MA to Mesa, AZ

1. Start out hypnotized by BEAUTY ( 13 years)
2. Merge into COMPLACENCY ( 4 years )
5. Grow nostalgic for all the friends you LEFT behind (1.5 years)
3. RIGHT wrongs that were never done to you (0.5 years)
4. Stay ANGRY at your PARENTS until you KNOW BETTER ( 2 years )
5. Merge into BITTER DRUNKEN STUPOR ( 2 years )
6. Follow STRANGERS into DISAPPOINTMENT ( 1 year )
7. Stay LOST in OWN THOUGHTS until ANTISOCIAL ( 2 years )
8. Look for SOME PLACE NEW that feels RIGHT (?????????)