Member of the Pack

It’s a pretense that I’m lonely, for as I look back
I do not miss existing in the raffish pack.
I do not miss the barrooms or parties tightly wedged
between the other partiers—those memories I’ve dredged
from a corner of my mind where they are a reminder
that once my world was fuller if not exactly kinder.

We were all examining the people we could be.
Trying on our different selves to see what we could see
in the mirror of our cohorts’ eyes and how they treated us,
riding in the joy car ’til we jumped down from the bus
to thumb a ride to try to find a different part to live in—
a part where all the rest of us wouldn’t have to give in.

All the various sides of us have their own times and spaces
that are all a part of how life puts us through our paces.
And now in maturity, I hope that we’ve all found
that comfortable part of us for which we all were bound.
And that’s why I’m not lonely as I wander back
in memory to when I was a member of the pack!

Prompts today are pretense, lonely, reminder, raffish and pack.