The Train

Night after night, year after year,
a sepia scene, always waiting for me here.
Silent and sad, a familiar place,
I search a traincar for a familiar strange face.

Never a word she speaks as she waits,
her hands fiddle mindlessly, there is fear in her face.
A recognition of a familiar sad place,
again she rides the train to her grave.

She boarded this train once, 150 years ago.
It was a day in September, a soft wind did blow.
And now the city has grown to twice its size,
but she never returned to see with her empty, vacant eyes.

She sits next to me in the train car seats,
her familiar strange face the one I waited to see,
I great her kindly, then I ask her why,
why does she board the same train knowing she'll surely die?
Her face fell for a moment, only a second of pain,
She only says, with a faint sad smile-- "I promised to meet him on the evening train."

I turn to the window and watch the sky,
I've been here before, at least a million times.
Seconds tick, or maybe hours pass by.
I take one last look before I close my eyes.

This scene so familiar, a sad sepia place.
Impact hits, I feel blood on my face.
I count back from three, you see I've been here before,
I inhale in the smoke, I can't breath anymore.

Eyes fly open, I suck a breath in.
The blankets constrict me, I've been dreaming again.
About the train from the past, that pushed me down into death.
I exhale, I breathe but I still smell the smoke on my breath.