This is my first poem of the year and also my longest to date! I was sitting playing guitar last night and had the song “Leaving and Never Coming Back” by the Glass Child running through my head, when this poem started to run through my mind. I wrote down the first two verses thinking it was a song, before realizing it wouldn’t work, playing my guitar and singing the lines. So I put the guitar away and just wrote. I forgot about the song. And just wrote. and This is what came out of it. So thank you, the glass child for your wonderful music and the awesome inspirtation:) This is one of my strangest, and one of my favorite poems to date! Oh, and so all the readers know, I’m a lesbian, and the person chasing her in the poem is a female, though it never actually says the gender, but, being a lesbian, it was a female character following her.

June

In a moment, I forgot my place

So I took some bags and I went away.

I didn’t know where I was heading

I couldn’t remember where I was from

So I wandered off aimlessly

To nowhere in particular

 

In a moment, I forgot your face

But you came looking for me anyway

I got off the train right before you got on

By the time you knew I’d been there,

I was alread gone.

Heading for nowhere in particular

 

London, Berlin, Peru, Spain,

I went to so many places but nobody knew my name

Maybe it was Helen, or perhaps it was Joan,

Nobody knew, nobody knew

Finally I decided it must be June.

I left France that very day

Right before you came that way

Stumped again, you didn’t know where I had been

I didn’t know you, I couldn’t recall,

Why, I knew nothing at all!
So I just kept wandering

To nowhere in particular

 

I took odd jobs as an immigrant

Nobody asked too much,
They were happy no papers had to be filed.

I didn’t ask for much money,

Just enough for food

I slept out of my bags

I told everyone my name was June.

I met a nice fellow named Brent

He smelled of cigars and he paid my rent

But he was very clingy, and he liked the sauce,

So I packed my bags and decided to get lost

Off

To nowhere in particular

 

In Indiana I met a little Miss

She didn’t like who I was so she changed me into someone new

Told me if I wanted to stay, I could no longer be June

Since I couldn’t recall who I was,

And I wasn’t sure who I am,

I played along, let her change me into what she wanted

Before I knew what had been done

My name was Pat and I was on the run
It seems my little Miss from Indiana

Liked to rob and steal things from different places

She pinned it on me and got away scot-free.

I fled from the state, I fled from the country

I wound up somewhere in Brazil

with no name to call my own

Was I June or Pat?

Oh is there no way to go back?

My little Indiana girl

Opened my eyes to the cruelty of the world

I was off again

To nowhere in particular

 

You had not stopped looking; you had come so very far

But you had lost your way somehow

Off on the streets, begging for a coin,

I walked right past you and didn’t even know

Tossed a coin your way and away I go

You see the back of my head and know not that it’s me

Oh so close we came to meeting!

By now I go by George, no, it’s not very ladylike,

But my girlfriend Pam really likes the dykes

I cut my hair and I wear men’s clothes

I tried to act the part, but really it’s not for me

I don’t like who I’m becoming

I try to tell pam but she cries and cries

It turns out she really has a thing for guys.

Away I go, to somewhere new

Aboard the train I meet a Stu

A businessman it seems,

On his way home to Washington, can you believe!

I sit beside him on the train

We talk for hours about sweet nothings

Finally he asks for my name

Finally I give up, I confess my troubles.

“I haven’t the slightest idea!” I tell him with woe

“I went by June, and then Pat, and then George,

But none were my true name. I can’t seem to remember that.

I have no idea where I’m from so I just keep wandering,

Hoping perhaps I might find the answers along the way

But all I can seem to do is find all the trouble that heads this way.”

 

Stu he was so kind, he saw something in me that was worth the effort

He took me to a doctor,

They said I hit my head

A concussion it seems, I had complete amnesia!

they asked me where I’d woken up,

But all I knew was it was on a street

I couldn’t even recall with complete clarity

How I’d come upon the train ticket and bags!

Why, I could have simply plucked them off a passerby!

Not that it matters now, that was nearly three years ago.

so many countries, so much trouble,

So many names, so many people,

So many faces, so many places,

A bump on the head took away my memory of me

They searched the missing persons, but it seemed nobody had filed a report

I was a Nobody in the land of people

With nothing to my name, and no way to find who I had been.

 

They aired my face on the tv

That is where you next saw me

Smiling and nervous and holding tight

To Stu’s hand as they offered a reward

“Twenty thousand dollars to any and all

who can tell us where this little Miss has come from!

Tell us who she is, and the money is yours”

All of this of course, paid for by Stu.

You were in such a panic,

you were so happy,

But you had no money, and no way to contact me

you tried the police but they thought it a joke

Nobody’s going to respond so quickly to someone like me

So you began working odd jobs,

You had to get out of Brazil

Meanwhile I was living with Stu in his house in Washington.

He was very nice, and had done so much,

So when he asked if I might marry him,

I felt as though it was only right

He’d gone through so much trouble,

All for a girl he didn’t know.

 

Then came the problem of having no name

How can I marry when I’ve nothing to sign?

He asked which name I’d like, there’s so very many to choose from,

If nobody’s going to claim me I might as well come up with something new

so I decided I would go back to June.

You finally had the money, you finally had the time

You arrived on that day, when I became his wife

I had no last name, so I just signed it “June”

And when they asked where I was from,

I said “Nowhere in particular”

I took his hand in marriage, I became June Francesca,

Everybody said I was very lovely

And they all felt so bad my family wasn’t there

Then all at once you appeared!

you screamed for it to stop

You pleaded for them to wait a moment longer

But the “I Do’s” had been said

The papers were signed, it was official, I was his wife

You looked for so long, you were so very sad

You cried right then and there, screamed that it wasn’t fair

I didn’t know who you were though; I’d never seen your face before

then you told me my name was Terry,

From rhode island, someplace near Providence.

Stu, he felt so bad for you

we offered you a room

But you refused, and went back to the streets

Begging strange people for their money.

 

We decided to check out your claim, so we went to Rhode Island

It turned out you were right, I really was a Terry

Theresa Amelia Beckley

that’s what people had called me

Oh but I didn’t remember anyone there

And it had been such a very long three years.

They were thrilled to see me,

They all greeted me with kindness

They welcomed Stu as if he were family

But I couldn’t help but wonder,

Why no one had filed a report.

Had I not been missed?

Had I not been noticed?

They gave no answer, in fact,

They stammered and stumbled

We couldn’t get out of there fast enough!

 

I stayed with Stu, and his family too
they were the ones who had saved me,

When no one else knew who I was

and I wasn’t going to leave them for some old lost love

Whom I didn’t even recall ever knowing.

You stayed on the streets for nearly six years

Then one day you woke up and realized it was silly

Pining for a girl who could never be yours

so you gave up the ghost, and finally you went home.

I stayed where I was, I was so happy too,

Right here with my Stu, where everyone knows me as June.