The Tunnel
Train tracks split my town in two.
There was no, “Wrong Side”,
As far as I knew.
Just businesses on one side
Our neighborhood on the other.
When my mom sent me out
For cigarettes I had to cross those tracks.
A six-foot fence, littered with wind blown
Debris, separated northbound from southbound.
The tunnel under the tracks
Entered the ground behind the V.F.W. Hall.
As a thirteen-year-old climbing down those steps
Was like entering a dungeon.
The first thing to hit you was
The acrid smell of urine going bad.
I always paused, frozen in fear,
On the bottom step to listen for footsteps.
Then I’d run the twenty yards
Trying to hold my breath but never succeeding.
Then up the steps to clean air
And safety.
I made that journey often.
Each time the tunnel fear
Took a little piece of me.
To this day, that tunnel
Still visits me in my dreams.
Or, I should say,
It still visits me in my nightmares.
Roy W. Backes
© 2021
Roy W. Backes - Poetry 