A POEM - NO TICKET HOME

NO TICKET HOME
I was talking to him on the bus.
He’d been living in China,
Teaching English and doing odd jobs,
Learning Chinese so he could start up some biz,
And get rich and retire young.
That whole dream.
He asked me about my travels,
And I told him where I’d been,
Where I was going.
He looked at me for a long minute,
Then said,
“So, you just, like, have no ticket home?”
I thought about it for a few seconds.
At one point I had one,
But that was months back.
I turned back to him,
The rows of palm trees flying past
Outside the window behind him,
“nope. No ticket home.”