Tired

Heaviness runs through the limbs.
Dark circles. Disoriented. Disheveled.
Throbbing feet. Cracked lips.
Tired. Painfully tired.
Craving sleep. Deep, dreamless sleep.

Time for the vagabond to hang up the shoes.

Give up the search for anchors and roots. 

Strange has the journey so far been.

Rooted to my own spot the entire world I have seen.

Stations have crept in or rushed past and gone. 

I alighted on some, ignored some,
some away from me have run.
Enticing and inviting were the names.
Family,love, friendship...
in each I tried to build credence.
People came and people went.
Yet there I stood, with a restless mind and a hungry heart.
At times vulnerable, sometimes vain.

I stood my ground facing the bumbling crowd
that rushed in from each stop.
Fiddled with perfidy, bruised with doubts, nudged with expectations,
trying to get a piece of me as a token.
Perched on the wheels of hope and qualm,
I saw them rolling all around.
Calculated moves, trifle motives,
overshadowing, ignoring
my outstretched arms.

The linchpins, they slowly came undone.
Eccentricity. Impulse. Quirks.
Various are my foibles that,
pulled each out, with painstaking precision.

I have waited for an eternity to come home.
To be gathered safely with a touch, comforted with a smile,
reassured with a familiar smell or a loving call.
The dust thrown up by the gallivanting posse has blurred my sight.
I sit at the crossroads shutting out all cacophony
of instructions and orders and chiding and imploring.
Exhausted. Fatigued. Finished. Dead.