when they only mean that
they cannot see the end of the road.
It's comforting, somehow, to describe dust as chaos,
a bumpy road as an impossible journey,
a bit of slope as a mountain pass.
They describe life in the terms of an adventure travel guide,
though they live a life from a tract home brochure,
full of gauzy pictures, and unrealizable dreams.
When they discuss eternal life and endless love,
it's a secret code for brief moments of calm and abandon;
who can find eternal things, in such a temporal place?