Given the resounding silence surrounding my post and link to that last poem (and at least one nudge from a friend), I thought I should clarify a thing or two about that poem, A Few Poetic Words.

To all my female friends, you can relax. It wasn't about you. Really, it wasn't about anyone. Well, it was, but it wasn't.

Since it seems important, I'll explain.

I had a really bad day last Tuesday. I spent all day getting jerked around by my company, spent my whole day running around looking for trailers, and after having been on duty for 13 hours, I still faced running a 700 mile load. I got a few miles up the road and stopped in Mebane, North Carolina, figuring I would call it a night and just get started fresh Wednesday morning.

Okay, enough background. Long story short, I went inside this truckstop to sit down and have dinner at its restaurant (which I hardly ever do). While there I struck up a conversation with an attractive woman at another table. We made small talk. She decided it made no sense that we both had our own table, so I invited her to share mine. She did so. That's about it. I had a nice dinner with an attractive woman and we had a lot of good conversation. Yes, there were a few sparks between us, but neither of us were really willing to cross that line.

Anyway, afterwards I lwent back to my truck, bedded down and got some sleep. But when I got up the next morning, I couldn't stop thinking about her. And I felt that kind of nervous thrill that you felt when you were a kid and you realized you had a crush on someone. It stunned me, really, and it got me to thinking about how starved I must be for simple human kindness that I can't sit down and have a dinner with a woman without thinking about all the possibilities, and reading more into it than I should be.

Well, then I started thinking about my female friends. And about how easy it would be for just about any one of them to break my heart right now. That got me to thinking. And reflecting on past mistakes. As it often happens, that got me to writing.

Thus, the poem.

A Few Poetic Words isn't really based on anyone. It was inspired by dinner with a lovely lady, and fleshed out by attractions I've always felt for some of my female friends, but there is no one woman that this is about. So I should offer my apologies to the women I alarmed as well as to the women who might have welcomed the sentiments.

As ever, I am a guy on a truck. And I think out loud too much. It honestly hadn't occurred to me that anyone would think I was directing this poem at them. To my knowledge I haven't had any encounters with any of my female friends that would elicit this kind of emotion. If I did and I missed it, please tell me. :-)

Anyway, there you are. An official disclaimer.