THE TICKET NEVER USED.

(In this poem I’m addressing Albert Camus. In doing so I’m confessing a huge debt, unfathomable wonder and an instinct for rebellion.)

You found me, twenty and cracked open,

too alive to die, too numb to live.

Your pages spoke like cigarette smoke

curling from the mouth of God.

You said the world was blank, and I believed you.

But you also said: walk anyway.

I was all unfinished chords,

a body without a purpose,

conceiving poems on the futility of writing,

sleeping through sermons of meaning.

But then:

you, who once leapt in muddy nets

before leaping into the void,

showed me I could love both the pitch and the page,

that boots and books need not be strangers.

You whispered that revolt was not rage or ruin,

it was simply breathing, whilst knowing – breath meant nothing.

You made the void bearable.

You made despair articulate.

When others offered faith,

you offered sunlight,

raw and indifferent as truth itself.

And I thought:

if you can love a mother more than justice,

perhaps I can love the world

without expecting it to answer.

They called you cold,

but they hadn’t read you right.

Your warmth was granite-warm,

a steady glow beneath the ash.

You wrote that the absurd man

must imagine Sisyphus happy.

So I learned to push my own small boulder,

and hum while doing it.

I’ve kept your rhythm,

that dry laughter behind the scream,

that refusal to kneel or curse.

I still feel your words pacing my spine

like a metronome but one I chose to follow.

Meaningless, yes.

But mine.

And sometimes I dream

of that unused train ticket

still folded in your briefcase,

the one you bought before the crash

for the train ride you didn’t take,

the journey that outlived you.

I think: perhaps that’s what you meant,

that we are all passengers late for our own salvation,

I sprint toward the goals and I prepare to score

already knowing I’ll fall over my own feet.

But still I run,

just to feel the wind in my lungs,

just to feel anything

finding purpose only in the walk

from wreckage to morning.

.

.

.

Original.

You found me, twenty and cracked open, too alive to die, too numb to live.

Your pages spoke like cigarette smoke curling from the mouth of God.

You said the world was blank, and I believed you.

But you also said: walk anyway.

I was all unfinished chords, a body without a purpose,

conceiving poems on the futility of writing, sleeping through sermons of meaning.

Then you whispered that revolt was not rage or ruin,

it was simply breathing whilst knowing breath meant nothing.

You made the void bearable.

You made despair articulate.

When others offered faith, you offered sunlight, as raw and indifferent as truth itself.

And I thought

if you can love a mother more than justice,

perhaps I can love the world without expecting it to answer.

They called you cold but they hadn’t read you right.

Your warmth was granite-warm, a steady glow beneath the ash.

You wrote that the absurd man must imagine Sisyphus happy.

So I learned to push my own small boulder, and hum while doing it.

I’ve kept your rhythm, that dry laughter behind the scream, that refusal to kneel or curse.

I still feel your words pacing my spine like a metronome but – one I chose to follow.

Meaningless, yes.

But mine.

And sometimes I dream

of that unused train ticket

still folded in your briefcase,

the ride you didn’t take,

the journey that outlived you.

I think: perhaps that’s what you meant,

that we are all passengers late for our own salvation,

finding purpose only in the walk from wreckage to morning.