AJ Lewis Poetry, Poems: He Wanted To Start Over (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

I went to go see him.
he had just gotten out of prison.
he had served a short term.
he looked tired, so I took him to dinner at a nice Italian
restaurant, and we had several drinks and talked about the
good old days, he told me about his stay in prison and I
caught him up with my life.
he said the food was good, and took some of it home with him.
I even paid for it all because he had just gotten out.

on the ride back to where he was staying
he told me that he wanted to start over, and that he had finally
discovered how wrong he was living his life
and how prison had helped him become a better person.
he told me that he was living with some people that do drugs,
and that it was just temporary until he could find a place
to live.
I told him to wake up, and that he was falling into his old habits
and that if he was going to turn his life around,
he needed to make the acquaintances of people that could help him.
he nodded
as if he was agreeing just to agree.

I took a right at the corner and parked in front of his house.
we went inside and it stank of pot. his buddies were sitting
on the sofa, the TV going and the
night dwindling away.

I left them to their night.

he called me recently and told me
that he had finally found a job as a truck driver hauling crushed rocks.
he was excited that he was going to get his license back
after seven years of not having one.
but he was still living at that same house and hanging out
with the same people.

when I hung up the phone
I knew he would call me again, probably with bad news.
it's always like that with him.
he wanted to start over
but he went back to the same place to do it.

I shook my head.
some people will never get it, no matter how much you do for them,
those people will just keep letting you
down.