Train whistle blows down a rusted worn out track,
And I can feel the ghost of it too.
Spikes shaken loose from the trips gone forth and back
A small white flag hangs, edges torn, from the caboose.
And me, I am the penny whose been flattened on the line
While I maintain the faint impressions of my days,
The structure of my form is no longer well defined
The copper barely shows the signs of Honest Abe.
It’s not pity that I seek as I lay prostrate on the rail,
Nor sympathy, nor condolence, nor regret.
I’m content enough to say that I have lived to tell the tale,
From whiskey, wine, from gentle sighs, to cigarettes.
It would be fair to say that I’m no longer to be used,
For the purpose unto which I was assigned,
But I look forward to the change of something altogether new,
However raw, or indistinct, or unrefined.
For while all the other coins make their exchanges through the globe,
From homeless cups, to wealthy hands, to wishing wells.
They’re begrudged by their monotony, the constant to and fro,
Their endless rides on fruitless circus carousels.
“Not I!” is what I’ll cry; my frame outstretched and smoothed,
“I’m am now of an entire different breed!”
My existence to this point may have all just been a ruse,
But your conventions are no longer what I need!
Train whistle blows down a rusted worn out track,
And I can feel the change coming strong
As I encourage other pennies to no longer fear the flat
And wonder why its taken all of us this long.
-Tayler Lynn
