Shin Splints

There's a blackbird in the road up ahead.
A surefire sign of welcome death for me.
Dark wings, black future.
And they'll pick the meat clean from my hide,
poke my eyes out, box me up
and send me home my sun-bleached bones.

If you can't learn to ignore the pain in your legs,
learn to ignore the pain in your lungs
and keep going on and going on to an end that isn't there.

Black asphalt stretches on for miles,
built by prisoners working work crews.
But these roads don't ever go nowhere.
Round in circles, all dead ends,
no pot of gold or four leaf clover.