Paint-By-Number Conflagration

There was no imminent threat.
Nothing was behind schedule.
The stores that lined the mall corridor
weren't going anywhere
as I strolled to kill some time.
But when I saw the teacher
who most impacted my life
at the troubled age of ten
when family court was heated
my legs turned into rockets.

There he was, eighteen years later
but not that much had changed.
If anything he looked better.
His barrel belly had disappeared.
Tufts of black hair poked from beneath
the sides of his baseball cap
without a single white reminder.
A gold chain stood out clearly against
the black skin of his neck while he
smiled at the cashier, handing over
what was due. And I, the eternal coward
couldn't give it to him.

He would've seen the tattoos;
perhaps a few lines too deep.
My beard needed a trim
and my shirt was good at
fitting: "Poetic Justice"
it declared across my chest
the ironic smirk sapped from
its wearer, the cynical tables turned.

"Who are you again?"
"What was your major?"
"Where'd you go to college?"
"Why do your hands feel so rough?"
"When did you go wrong?"
"How did you waste such potential?"
It was a barrage of shameful questions
that my colon couldn't handle.
His mouth would not deliver them
though his eyes would tell the truth.

I sped away, a thief of fate
promising to stop as consolation
if he was still there on my way back.
He wasn't.
Opportunity's not stagnant.
It comes and takes its victims
leaving the rest to wonder
and make deals with gods
and demons for a chance
at bitter redemption.
The loudest aren't the weakest;
the ones who go silently are.

My truck served as no refuge.
I turned on the radio
to try to drown them out
but the women laughed in unison:
"The scalpel's in your hand."