humanitarian ghost sedan

you think I'm paying you off?
see, every afternoon, every weeknight, is the last one, for me. It's the way I keep sane, pretending that I'm about to see the end. Pretending that this afternoon, this weeknight, is the one where I'll go quietly, like a needle over vinyl, up the stairs to my room. There will be a couple thousand dollars that I can slip into a knapsack, some sweaters, notebooks. The make up I never go anywhere without. Markers, scissors and maybe a copy of Walden to steel me or a copy of The Little Prince to remind me what the grown ups do. And I'll blow a kiss to my vinyl and my drums and my books and the bed I've been saving, saw through the chains of my anchors. And I'll write a note to my family- something kind but final. And that afternoon or that weeknight, I'll start walking.

Eventually, I'll hit the city. I'll be tired, terrified. My body will be inscribed on every grimy wall I pass. Alone. Alone. Alone. It will thud against my skull, ache in my ribs. That will be my baptism. The kind of alone no one keeps walking through will wash it's city-trash over me and there will be some new life somewhere in it.

After a terrifying few days (I'll hide in libraries and coffee shops where it's tame, but the savagery will still be working it's root into me) I'll get on a bus or a train and go to somewhere else. Maybe Chicago, maybe Alabama. It doesn't matter, really, only I'll think about what I feel like before I go. Maybe Alabama, maybe San Diego. Maybe Amish country. It doesn't matter, really, as long as it's a place that isn't here.

I'll walk and learn to breath after my baptism, like a toddler in photographs, gradual jerking motion. I'll find a place to live, unusual and maybe sunny. I'll learn to talk to strangers just like I was always taught not to. I'll make friends, but only on random meetings of eyes, not on introductions. A year will pass. Maybe two. It doesn't matter, really.

I'll get on a plane. I won't have any money to my name after I get on that plane, but I won't be needing return fare. I'll get to Europe, maybe Africa. It doesn't matter, really, as long as the sun breaks out of a cloud when I get there and my jeans are worn in with a few months worth of soft dirt. I'll be on some mountains then, coming home out of my home after so long. I'll go to a city, maybe, but sometimes not a city. It doesn't matter, really, as long as I work harder than I ever wanted to back home, and give my money away or find out how not to keep it. After a few months, there will be a boy, too. His jeans will be worn in soft with unwashing, and he'll move like vinyl around me.

I'll have a child. I'll visit my home. I'll spin like vinyl around my boy, maybe my boys. Maybe I'll have two children or three or four. Maybe one will be a girl. I'll be getting old. Looking like I was born yesterday. Maybe my belly will be swelling with another child. The blankets on my bed- my bed and my boy's bed- will have squares of sunlight on them, and sometimes we'll lie down together in the sunlight and he'll rub his fingers over the wrinkles coming on my face. Maybe we'll die like that, together, when our children bring their children to play on the floor of my small house.

You think I'm honestly here?
This is no half-dream. I've planned it all.
Maybe this afternoon, this weeknight, will be the one where I go quietly, like a needle over vinyl, like a flame finding a wick.