We're in a railcar heading northbound and the sun is setting behind warehouses. As long as he has his ipod and I have my sharpies, we are just distracted enough to overlook anyone else on board. I'm thinking, "I would not do this alone," but maybe I wouldn't do it with him, either. Uncomfortable stares from old men don't matter when there are two of us; and with two, becoming lost is an adventure instead of a nightmare. I always wanted to be two...but two never satisfies.
All the Saturday afternoon fun the world has to offer; I'm making a hat and I'm waiting on this to expire.
He hands me a brick. It is cold and uncomfortably heavy in my hand. He says, "build a wall," so I pick up the mortar and begin.
As warm and inviting as things were beforehand, evidence only hints that time is running out.
When he asks how I know for a fact that I have ghosts in my apartment, I tell him it's because I can sense them. He says that feelings are not concrete, and every reality - with its honesties and complexities - is completely abstract.
So we rewind the tape and the playback is just as our memories promise; but there is such delight in revisiting the dead:
It must be almost dawn and we are in the most secluded part of the forest in the backseat of my parked car. It isn't the first full evening we've spent, shivering against the cold leather seats and aggrandizing our past musical careers, but it is the first time we are without snow in weeks. We almost get arrested, but I can't stop laughing. And though he will never know the hope he has given me to move forward, he must see me getting better. I stopped writing the same way after I met him.
There is a container in the back of this car and it transitions from one trunk to another until it ends up, seven years later, in the storage closet of my California apartment.
One day, when I am looking for something else, I will thumb through the contents of the container, finding dozens of journals and various art supplies from my freshman year of college. One particularly dusty notebook will catch my eye, so I will read over passages and lyrics as someone stands in my living room, waiting; and I will note the common angry tone and an immense appetite for self-destruction. And then, I will wonder what has happened to me.
The fortune has faded, and I am bowing out.
I was absolutely certain I would make a career out of the things I love. My unending pursuit of clarity was the driving force behind those creations, but I am no longer angry, and I am no longer an advocate for humanity.
Today she tells me she is throwing in the proverbial towel; and I wince with envy because all I want is to go home. Amongst all the things I've lost along the way, I still cling tightly to the aspect of running, the shock of a door slamming behind me, the agony of starting over.
The problem with my current location is the lack of seasons. There is no beginning, no end; and the only comfort I've found in such monotony is eaten away by the only force that reminds me I am still alive: growth. It's a thick black mold and it's covering me and it is my reminder that all things expire for a reason.
