dmseay

used to watch from sidewalks in early morn under blue street lights and starry skies… moon cast shadows…dogs would bark…middle-class men leaving their wives for another day of selling insurance…piecing together cars on assembly lines…meeting lovers in parking lots…breakfast with the boys…

and you could see living room lamps burn…curtains drawn in bedrooms…bathroom windows fogged…silhouettes applying make-up…naked…just shadows of curved bodies…

smoke from fireplaces…snow crunching under foot as I walked from door to door with paper in hand…taken from a black print stained bag reading…, JOURNAL GAZETTE….never looked at the headlines…

all these suburban houses…homes where meals were eaten…prayers said…love made…secrets kept…

i wondered…i wondered…

hungry…

no…

there’s some cold lasagna in the fridge…

no thanks…

warm it up for ya’…

that’s O.K. ….

it’s the good kind…got it at the store…

really…I’m fine…

just heat-n-eat…

I said no thanks…

alright…but ya’ should eat somethin’…

don’t want to…not in the mood…

you have to be in a mood to eat…it’s not somethin’ you do second nature…like breathin’…i never forget to breath…i guess if i did i’d be dead…that’s funny isn’t it…forgettin’ to breath…i could spend a whole day just worryin’ ’bout it…worried if i remembered to breath…but…i shouldn’t worry ’bout it ’cause like i said it’s second nature…just somethin’ you do over the course of the day and night time too…you don’t stop breathin’ in your sleep…if you did you’d die…that would be a horrible death now wouldn’t it…can you imagine being asleep and then all of the sudden you stopped breathin’ for some reason or other…that’d be a real pickle now wouldn’t it…and what i’m sayin’ is breathin’ is just somethin’ we do…suggestin’ that maybe eatin’ is the same way…we just simply do it…but you’re not in the mood huh…

no…

well O.K. …makes more for me…maybe you don’t like store bought lasagna…maybe you’d prefer if i made it from scratch…noodles…sausage…sauce… the whole shot…well don’t think i can’t mister…i’ll show you a fine lasagna one of these days…you’ll eat it and say that is one fine lasagna…you know they say lasagna is Italian but i think it’s more american than anything…what we did was americanize it…just like that egg foo yung stuff…now that’s a truly american dish…we took it over…just like this land from the Indians…we just took it over…we didn’t ask…we just did it…want some coffee…

I don’t think so…

suit yourself…i’m gonna fix me a cup…i might even have some of that cold lasagna…not even heat it up…just eat it cold right from the pan with a big plastic spoon you’d use for soup…sure you don’t want any coffee…sure…you listenin’…didya hear me…you’re ignorin’ me…are your eyes shut…are ya’ asleep…answer me…are ya’ asleep…well…O.K…but don’t say i didn’t ask…you wanna blanket…some cover…i got a turquoise one i picked up in New Mexico a long time ago…back when i was goin’ ‘cross america on a Greyhound…got cold on that bus so i bought me this Mexican blanket…wonder if it was made by real Mexicans…probably not…probably american…probably american…

never did i want for anything really…it was all gratis…given to me by pimps…whores…junkies…speedfreaks…alcoholics…the wretches of the world…those who had been forgotten about long ago by brothers and sisters…moms and dads…school teachers and priests…

i would sit and listen to their stories every night in homeless shelters…soup lines…basements of Catholic churches and Synagogues…for some reason they all thought they could spill their guts to me…they thought i gave a damn about their plights in the world…thought i cared ’bout their struggles…no one in this world truly cares…

truth is…i neither cared nor didn’t care…i was neutral in the whole matter…if a guy told me he once killed a man for the hell of it…i figured sure…why not…probably had it coming…if a guy told me he was sick and depraved…i congratulated him on accomplishing something in his life…

all i wanted were the stories these guys told…their truths…and their petty lies…i figured this was my job…to write about america…the underbelly…the guts…the shit that pours out of us daily…that’s all i wanted from this land of ours…that’s all I ever wanted…

i hear water trickling and a train whistle wail through this town of old…where rivers flow separately…never merging…muddy waters high in the fall from summer’s rains and spring’s promises…i hear water trickling…

cars crawl down red brick roads where soldiers once marched and battle cries screamed out into night as young men died for causes we’ll never understand…never understand…who was right…who was wronged…whose sins were never atoned for…

lights are out in boarded-up A-frame houses of wood and tar…homes that housed families hiding from the world outside only to be tricked everytime by thieves and police…thieves and police…knocks on doors always came louder…louder…never wanting an answer…never wanting an answer…

and i sit in the dim light of night looking into my future…my past…thinking of rivers and battles in this life…lost…rivers going no-where…rivers going no-where…

where is my oar…

nothing excites you anymore…

nothing…

the burst of a new season…

no…no…nothing…

good books…movies…

nope…

what about cars…new cars…or…motorcycles…fast…something that really goes…

‘fraid not…

the touch of a woman in purple hours…

no…not that…

how sad…how sad…

yes…how sad…

was in love…

were ya’ now…

was…

not anymore…

not anymore…

why…

hard ta’ say really…these things come-n-go…you know…when in you’re in love you think there’s no stoppin’ it…no puttin’ an end to this pain ya’ feel all the time…this 50 pound weight ’round your neck…

that’s what love is…

when she doesn’t love ya’ back…yes…that’s exactly what it is…it’s this constant ache ya’ know…this all-out-bewilderment of why…why doesn’t she…and the truth is…she doesn’t have to…that’s what hurts…

i know that love…that feeling of love and loss of love…or a love that was never there to begin with…that feelin’ of hopelessness…i know that kinda’ love…

and ya’ can’t stop it…not knowingly that is…it’ll drag on for what seems to be forever…walkin’ ’round in this fog…this gloomy haze…

yes…

but then one day it’s all gone…that feelin’ of loneliness and sorrow is gone…ya’ don’t look at it the same way anymore…ya’ don’t look at her the same way anymore…that spell she cast on ya’ is gone…

then what…

wait…just wait…there’s always magic ’bout…you’ll be under another spell soon…some other woman will wave her wand and you’ll be right back in the soup…right back in it…

but for now…

for now i count my blessings…

the road was empty…maybe every once in a while a jack rabbit or opossum would run across the highway…but no traffic…just a black night with some stars out…so few you could count ’em…

he turned the radio off…music was loud and tinny comin’ through the speakers of the old Dodge…couldn’t make -out the words to Springsteen’s, Blinded By The Light…sometimes silence is your best friend…

kept thinkin’ these thoughts of offin’ himself…ending it all…didn’t really see a purpose to livin’ anymore…wanted to jump into a void and just keep fallin’…wasn’t sure ’bout final destinations or gods…inner peace…mansions of gold…nothin’…just wanted to fall into that void…be swallowed-up by a big black hole…

would have these panic-attacks over the smallest of things…no clean laundry…gettin’ lost…a boss yellin’ at him…things normal people shake-off he couldn’t…and that’s when the thoughts creeped in…these thoughts of doin’ harm to himself…poppin’ a bunch of pills…jumpin’ in a river…drinkin’ himself to death like Dylan Thomas…somethin’ to ease pain…somethin’…

and he’d always had pain…was nothin’ new…’cept now it was gettin’ worse…gettin’ darker…his whole life consisted of nothin’ but thoughts of suicide…couldn’t explain it…was always that way…always…

just another form of runnin’ away from somethin’…he was real good at runnin’ away…maybe that’s what he was doin’ out on the highway that night…just runnin’ away…

he said he was tired of life…no longer any possibilities…just dead-ends…or…circles…a long round circle that you can never get out of…keeps repeatin’ itself…over and over and over…never lets up…least that’s what he said…

could tell he was headin’ into no-man’s land long time ago…’bout the time mom died…seemed to just let-go of everything in his life…things that used to be important were no-longer important…all those rules he had for his life…broken…he was broken…

gave-up on takin’ care of himself…let his body begin to smell…stopped showerin’…shavin’…wore the same old clothes everyday…blue jeans and a flannel…could have been 100 outside and he still wore that flannel…buttoned it all the way…

he told me…,I’m done…I’m truly done with this life…, said with a sober tone…, let me go ’bout my business now…, he nodded…,let me go on now…I won’t make no fuss…just let me go…

so…i let him…i let him close his eyes…let him go into the big sleep…that’s what he wanted…
that’s what he wanted…

goodnight pops…

nearly crying….feeling nothing…how he wished he could feel something…

the heart breaking…
laughter at a joke…
a wish upon some star…
just feel something…

nearly crying…feeling nothing…how he wished he could feel something…

a father wanting attention…
mom’s affections…
cuts on a finger…
the tongue burns…

nearly crying…feeling nothing…how he wished he could feel something…

feel something…feel something again…

sitting…
looking…
out…

man on a corner…
school kids crossing streets…
a cross atop a steeple…

sitting…
looking…
out…

an old wooden staircase…
cars upon blocks…
air-conditioners in windows…

sitting…
looking…
out…

green leaves turning…
trash in yards…
blood on sidewalks…

sitting…
looking…
out…

Sun peaking through clouds…
men on stepladders…
wires…

sitting…
looking…
out…

just sitting…
looking…
out…