The speakers crackled as the booming female voice announced,

“Sweet Love Train leaving in five minutes.”

The doors clacked open

As the conductor stepped outside.

“All Aboard!” he bellowed in his deepest baritone.

I watched as the passengers lined up to board.

I stood helplessly without a ticket,

As each handed him their golden pass and boarded.

Young couples. Older couples. Boys and girls.

Gleeful and excited.

The Sweet Love Train.

Destination unknown.

“Whoo-whoo-whooooooo-uhhhh”

The train whistle so forlorn yet hopeful.

The wheels achingly turning under such heavy weight.

“Shuh-rumph. Shuh-rumph. Shuh-rumph”

I look in the windows.

The happy faces.

All smiling. Laughing. Kissing.

No fear of the unknown journey ahead.

The train picks up speed.

Each window a frame of life.

Each telling a story.

Like an old film reel slowed down.

Faster and faster the panes of glass

Flash past me in a kaleidoscope of love.

The blur of once clear faces

Now just confused colors and shapes.

The emptiness felt

As the last car leaves the station.

Watching as it roars down iron rails.

Until the silence within walls of people.

The Sweet Love Train has come and gone again.

I stand ticketless.

A bystander in my own life.

Left to wonder why.

The present is my purgatory.

The past is my hell.

The future escapes me.

As my memories come rushing back.

More often than not, I was standing on those tracks

When the Sweet Love Train plowed through me.

And left me tattered and torn,

Ticketless in the station.