“We’ve got to go looking!”

“He’s been getting farther and farther away. Nobody can talk to him for more than 5 minutes now.”

“Now he’s gone! No one can find him!”

“No one can seem to get in contact with him either. I say we check the old woods, near the paths. He loved to go there when he was a kid.”

They set out on a manhunt.

But what I didn’t expect

Was to walk out into the city

Hear people talking about some “lost cause”

And a “missing reject”.

What caught me most off guard though

Was when we made it to the old woods

Behind my childhood house

Where I used to hunt for salamanders

And go walking for hours sometimes

And I found a kid

Curled up in a leafy opening

Sobbing to himself

And when he looked up

I looked into my eyes

And knew

‘I’m lost’.