Downtown

"When you're alone and life is making you lonely

You can always go - downtown.

When you've got worries all the noise and the hurry

Seems to help I know downtown."

- Petula Clark

Downtown, 

the anonymity is what I miss.

Times when I had just been on 11 o'clock news

during a contentious school board meeting

and after I would stop at some dive bar

slurping my beer where no one recognized me

and the small talk was more about 

state sports teams 

and not about school board layoffs 

or some other controversy.

Downtown,

not where the lights were bright 

but the beer was cold

and I was just another lonely soul

nursing the wounds of our existence.

Downtown,

where I could be alone.