Happy Hour in Suburbia

 

It's happy hour in suburbia,

ice cubes tinkling in the glass,

a festive feeling until the third drink,

when voices grow loud and discontent
is everywhere.

The children, big-eyed and silent,

move from in front of the television

to the farthest bedroom.
All of the ways

wives and husbands exhibit despair

are on display in slurred speech,

which escalates.

I got off that bus to nowhere in 1972.

When I turned forty, I changed my life.

My job was deadening my dreams;

 my spirit and all hope was dying.

It was then or never, so, to save my life,

I gave up the management job,

the first decent paycheque I had ever earned,

gathered all the trust I could muster,

and took a  leap over the mountains

to a wilder shore. Holes in my sneakers,

three jobs at a time, the struggle was real,

but so was the exhilaration - joy 

on a daily basis for ten long years.

Now, at the end of the road, at the edge of the world,
my happy hours are full of cackling crones,

with ungovernable hair and interesting attire,

looking back at adventures we never could have

imagined, back in those lives the 50's

programmed us for: those little houses all in a row,

a car in every driveway, and enough drinks

at happy hour to make it through.

For Brendan at Desperate Poets: Desperate in Suburbia. I've got the t-shirt for that one, but thankfully it didnt last long.