Coney Island afternoons and some photos for the Instagram. A long train ride and an even longer drive back to the Midwest. Flowers for the funeral and an escape hatch back to the cornfield. I took pictures of a random old man in a furry cap near a fishing reservoir because he was there and so was I. Before that, or just after there were photos of the blue bells and the red dress. I was such an artist then. On the inside anyway.
Fast forward and rewind and stop the tape. Stop the presses. Stop the stopping and the restarting and the crying and the tears. Stop in the tracks or on the tracks or along some abandoned railway in the far northeastern reaches of Wisconsin. Do you remember the lake? The vacated beach? The car trouble on the way to Alaska?
Can you remember that awful night in September? It never happened. It never took place and there was never a race and there was never a trophy and there cannot be a winner. There was no dinner. No rest stop. No casino. There was no gravel road to destiny and there was no lake shore in Ohio.
You made it all up. You made it all up and now you can’t remember the truth from the fiction. You’re lost somewhere in the library trying to find the elevator back to the beginning. Back to the place where the book starts and the characters are just introduced. You’re lost and there isn’t enough sage left in your pouch to clear the demons from your new place, let alone wash away those that are left in your last.
Buy the cast iron and the antique canister and stuff all your collectibles inside. Cut the sausage on the counter and snap a picture because it’s just to good not to share. Sit outside on the curb and catch the bus as it rolls by. There’s laundry around the back and it’ll be the last place you call home. Second floor, first door. Have some memories and try to sort yourself out. A couple of years from now you’ll be wondering why it was that you could never get comfortable there.
Life goes on and so does the band. Take yourself back to those empty rollercoasters and the Zoltar machine. You’ve never not been you, you’ve just been circling the drain that doesn’t exist except in your head. Go to bed. Go to sleep. Go and rest, my friend.