The Train Station

The Train Station

By May Kwek

I wait at the station

My ticket in my hand

For this paper tears and sweat

And years of my life were spent

So now I can take a train

And go off into the unknown

To the places I’ve never seen

And every hope that’s grown

A train arrives clad in gold

It brightly shimmers and shines

Surely it must go somewhere

Really great and fine

I hand the conductor my ticket

He does not allow me inside

For he says my ticket

For this train isn’t right

So with regret I watch the train go

And vanish into the mists

And wait for yet another

Certain there’ll be nothing amidst

A train of silver comes

Sparkling like a dime

I hand the conductor my ticket

But this train isn’t mine

So I go back to waiting

Watching people come and go

So many board, all going somewhere

While I am waiting so

Stuck on the platform

Watching wrong trains go pass

Platinum, diamond, even lead

Hoping they’ll be mine at last

But they’re not and I have to watch

As I stay despondently still

Watching as people move on and go

And wondering if I ever will

Again and again I try

But the answer always seems to be

“This train does not go where you’re going”

“So wait for the next please”

So I wait and I wait

Agony eating at my soul

I’ve spent my life on this ticket

Is it as worthless as fools’ gold?

But each conductor tells me wait

The train that is mine will pass

For surely this stillness in time

Cannot forever last

And finally a train rolls in

Its carriages beaten and old

I hesitatingly hand in my ticket

And up on board I go

Surely there must be some mistake

This train is a wreck

I did not work for years

To ride in something like that!

But then the train leaves the station

And where others turn right it goes left

Out of the concealing mists

That leave so many bereft

It leaves it all behind

And ahead I see fields of gold

Oh. Now I understand

That’s where I’m meant to go

Copyright © 2018 by May Kwek