11:29-11:49
Rev up the engine, flip the switch from stand-by to 'on' and feel the pistons begin pumping. The boiler heats up and the water starts to churn. Let it warm up first before we take it out for the day. Replace the oil and the batteries. Wash the hair off. Cough in the night and get woken up by a teleportation. And suddenly, momentary, I am not alone in bed. Then I remember where I am. Shine the shoes, pick the gum out of your hair, the cereal between your teeth, listen to something uplifting and warm. Is this anxiety due to the fact I can't find a New York Times anywhere? Or maybe because I didn't exercise. Flip me over like a police car. Explain my weird medical conditions. Explain my nervous tics and help me minimize my conditioned response to certain stimuli. It's like somebody rings a bell and I shrink. I become small after a certain pattern of sounds. Not physically. Mentally. Which is worse? I shrink and unravel into a lesser human being. Constantly worried. I need to get hit with a truck full of unconditioned responses. Give me new fixations. Conditioned myself into believing I am god. This would be the other end of the spectrum. (I would like to take this time to thank the big guy downstairs.) Pinch a nerve. Swollen scar tissue. You performed an acrobatic feat like none before. And none saw it. You would have won points. Trick points.... Valentine's day approaching. On the tenth my agenda says 'buy your girlfriend flowers'. And I am brought back to a place I was last year. In the arms of a beautiful, emotional woman. Rather she was in my arms. I don't know. It was probably mutual. We melted like heart shaped chocolate and vanilla incense wafting through a cold dorm room with an open window. Sticky notes with names on them, in the shape of a heart. Christmas lights, year-round. We were irresponsible sure sure. Fine for a college first. There is always an allotment of freedom for the 'first' time for something. You can be sloppy and stupid and silly. Eventually you learn how to avoid these degrading moments. The ones that possibly harm others more than yourself. The ones that leave scar tissue on their eyes and ears but they will never understand. They will be upset that they have to listen or watch. And for the first times you can be stupid oblivious in love and not care at all what the others are doing and how they are reacting. You can be cute and innocent. That's a front though. That innocence is rare and is destroyed as soon as someone hears about it. Destroyed until there are no fragments left. Everyone wants to see someone experience something for the first time. First joint. First shot. First lay. First lay up. First kiss. First half court shot. First guava. First hookah. First hike. etc. And we all try to open each others eyes. Well it used to be like that. Nowadays everything seems too safe and sane. I miss the disorganization and chaos of a million first-time experiences. Though the quality of experience diminishes and you can ruin yourself and the activity in progress.
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The girl who ties herself to the train tracks and waits. The boy who gets drunk and wanders lost through the streets trying to get home. He crosses the train track and sees her attempting to tie herself down. He falls over a few times and cuts his hands. She says what do you want get away from me. He says looks like you need a hand and ties her securely before walking off again in the wrong direction. He realizes what he has done and he runs back to the tracks. He can't remember where they are. He puts his ear to the ground to listen for the train. He shushes cars (I'm trying to find the train tracks by listening for the rumbling) as the speed by until their soft sounds lull him to sleep. On the hard pavement. He wakes stripped of dignity but wallet is intact and he discovers no stab wounds to speak of. Train sounds in the distance. He tries to focus and locate the direction of the sound while yelling at cars to stop moving for a damn second. Pick me up fools. I am a forlorn hitch hiker trying to save a girl who tied herself to the tracks. I helped her, therefore I am responsible. She wanted to be tied so there could be no going back. If she is slaughtered I have no grounds to fight the charges and will be hung from the gallows like a southwest cowboy cliche. The type that rolls into town guns drawn and everyone is afraid. A good old fashioned murder. I don't want that. I made a drunk mistake. Please drive me to the train tracks, or god deliver them to me so I can save this doomed sad girl and move in with her and live with her in infinite peace. We will love like romance novels. And we will say cliche things about the love we share but it won't be cliche because it will be true and honest. From the heart. We will say things like from the heart. If I save this lovely girl from the hurtling death of the train carrying god knows what to god knows where and why this late I'll never understand. I just know that it is traveling much too fast to attempt to hop about towards the west. California on their lips. I would hold her when she wanted to cry but not in public because we would lose ourselves blind. PPPEEEOPLE like US WE JUST EXXISTT. I am in love with this girl. My drunken idiocy, such as pulling a knife on a harmless attendant or puking onto the face of a priest of defecating on a blind grandmothers back porch, near the rocking chair she sits and weaves, stabbing her wrinkled fingers from time to time, now smelling shit. These awful things could very well have happened already. But all of the worst combinations of events will occur if I don't save this girl. This beautiful beautiful girl who wishes to die until I rescue her like a cowboy. Like that spill canvas song. Self conclusion.
