Somewhere
in some town
a man sits alone with his thoughts.

One side of the early evening sky is etched in pink
as the setting sun burns through a thin layer of clouds.
The other side has already turned dark but still,
there are no stars to be seen, not this early.

He thinks to himself
"C'mon, sit down next to me,
crack a beer or two and pull up a view."

He reminisces about the days gone by
and ruminates on those that are yet to come
and has a hard time distinguishing between the two.
Thin lines are always subject to debate

Somewhere from either inside his own head
or from inside his own house
Louis Armstrong is once again playing the sweet sound of jazz
and the lonely wail of his trumpet seems to moan away the clouds

From across the yard he spies a light go on in a garage
His neighbor, with her kids in tow, jumps in her minivan
off to some unknown destination
Under his breath,
he quietly wishes her a safe journey

For the time being,
silence narrates the story he'd like to tell
He thinks to himself
"Sometimes it's better that way"

People sometimes ask him why he drinks so much
and just like the robot he invariably replies
"To ease the pain"
And those very same people always feel the need to ask
"The pain of what?"
And to this he has only one word
And that word is
"Exactly"