Disgusted with dorm life, another party,

More drunkenness, more joints passed around,

More of the same music, same people, fed-up,

I leave, stumbling my way to the car, driving west

Over the Coastal Range to the coast, the Pacific.

Too tired to keep on, I pull into what seems to be 

A dead-end road. Here I pitch my tent, always

With me in the trunk, as best I can in the misting,

Cloud-shrouded, moonless night. It's dark. 

Fumbling into the tent and sleeping bag, 

Cursing everything that ever was or ever will be, 

I drift into a semblance of sleep—weary, dreaming,

If I am dreaming, of water, rushing water, coming to 

At dawn to hear a sodden, pissy rain on the tent,

But a roar from outside of it. Crawling forth, 

I gasp, if not literally, inwardly, to see I've pitched

The tent feet away from what is now a torrent, 

A bouldered mountain stream, rising fast, breaching 

The bank, and my tent, and my car, and me,

Begging to sweep the lot of it, me, toward 

A wet oblivion, to be spit out miles downstream

Into some muddy tributary of the Rogue River.

I'm ready for oblivion, I've had it up to here.

With narrowed eyes I weigh the odds, judging—

Nature will not get me, not this time, not yet.

Throwing tent and bag and myself into the car, 

Sitting with my fingers on the key, feeling let down 

That I got off so easily, I slink off. Had I slept 

Another hour I'd be an item in the local paper—

Missing college student found dead blah, blah, blah. 

Not yet, lived to see another day, a day I don’t want.