Kind of makes you wonder where you fucked up haha.
Kind of makes you want to kill somebody, too.
I pray to God, and I believe in Jesus’s name and all that come with it, but I gotta make moves regardless.
I know that He’ll save me. I’m waiting for that day. I’m waiting and praying.
Sometimes I feel the most alive when I’m praying because while searching for the substance to keep me alive under the stars, and I just know He’s watching me too.
As I climb in the Acura, and drive this way and that way, looking in rear-views, lighting blunts and listening to Hot 97 Top 8 at 8. The ghosts and the legends.
Living through the airwaves, and I’m life that imitates art, or it’s just that feeling, when they rhyme, I rhyme. When they smoke, I smoke. And when they cop bundles, I’m right there with them. Mostly because the plug is my best friend.
I’m not saying it’s the right thing, but the wrong thing seems to end up on your lap if you’re a certain kind of person. They say people bring the energy that they are, and we’re all just magnets. But is it what we’re drawn to that’s pulling us in, greater in gravity? And then if that’s the case, who can say who did what?
Your Honor, I was attracted by the sheer gravity of my lust and desire for money and status, plus I really liked to get high and I didn’t want to pay for that shit if I didn’t have to, you know what I’m saying, though admittedly it did create a cyclic reaction, which is why I guess I’m here, allegedly.
It’s always music and contemplation and it’s those memories that play in on you dawg, if you wanna let em, go ahead then, you know you wanna let em. Sentimental ass, sentimental wanna be all talking about her remembering her all lonely motherfucking ass.
She loved you man. She loved you for real. Like I don’t know too many girls who really love their man like that, but she really loved your ass man. You took that shit for granted. Yo I know I know G.
Man you fucked that up. Yo Shut the fuck up. I heard you already, alright? You think I don’t know? Shut the fuck up with that shit already. Shit. Alright yo. Knew you be getting all sensitive and shit.
I used to spend afternoons in the guard shack, some truck spot at the edge of the known world, Pennsylvania or some shit, and there alone sitting on the same chair someone else who was in my position once did, though they were so much older than me—and maybe even started same time as me—and they sat there thinking they were going to do exactly what I am, which is sit here and write the next great American novel. Without Benzedrine.
It was damp inside like it always just rained, and there was that worn Navajo blanket just like Holden Caufield’s old teacher had, the smell of tobacco impressed deep inside the tin can’s crevices, every ancient corner where the man had fixed a leak, only to find another leak, until the raindrops became tears illustrating the story, as it goes of course—which is to say off course—but there’s a boat in this story somewhere, trust me. Always, this ship lands back on her.
I sat there long afternoons, and ate other employees’ lunches, and ironically when they installed the CCTV in the office—that’s where the refrigerator was—they must’ve seen me high as fuck, dancing to Ray Charles (this was 2004 and the soundtrack had just come out) and saw me circling the office, bopping, while eating some dude’s lunch.
Needless to say, my guy Ranger Rick was disappointed when he pulled up, but he knew these things happen. Doing the 14-hour shift for some overtime, man’s bound to go crazy. Back in my day, he starts off, and luckily, I’m stoned so I’m right there with him…
It was a good site. Better than the Mack-Cali buildings, though those had their corporate charm. The truck stop was at the edge of the universe, and pages were written there, blunts were smoked atrociously.
I once jerked off on a wildflower, in the back of the truck stop, just out of boredom.
Pennsylvania is a rabid forest. I used to look up at the night sky, surrounded by the slumber of a thousand lorries, gazing into the celestial, knowing that one day I would get past this, and there at every step, I felt God’s presence, blowing with a gentle wind. I spoke to the wind, and the wind spoke to me too. It told me I was going to be exactly where I was supposed to be, and I trusted the wind and smoked the rest of my blunt, but still I got paranoid when I saw headlights pierce the darkness.
I had nothing but waves of shifting asphalt while I stood alone on my plank, waiting to jump to the next level, whether it was up or down, if only it meant somewhere else.
Here’s me with a key clock and the company of cats, possibly ghosts, making sure the giant vats of glue don’t explode. The bathroom here smells like sweet ether. Calendar of bikini models hanging on the office door.
In the back of the factory, the wall of graffiti, where the writers come to market themselves, lowly in this locale, but something, just a little pamphlet on the street, a mixtape for free—Yo, check out my mixtape!—a business card made on the cheap, practicing the art of being recognizable, and having good humor about it when no one knows who the fuck you are.
It’s possible Vita and I were soulmates. It’s possible we were meant to be together until the end of time. I saw myself, I really did. She was my one and only, that was the problem. My only. That was the part that made me worry, even when everything was perfect, because she told me things. I trusted her, but I knew what she was telling me. And she knew I would never judge her. I would love her for who she was now, always. And I always did.
We broke up and got back together. But it was never the same after that. We couldn’t stay together, like the Elmer’s we were using was just for pretend. This wasn’t meant to fix things, only for glitter and stars and messy fingers covered with glue like cheese.
Why did we start fighting all the time? We tried to make it the same, but things just go bad and then they stay that way.
I hear Hemmingway talk about love like fruit. Sometimes, the oranges just go bad. They go blue as the ocean.
Tough guys, on bended knee, that’s when it gets penitent.
“Forever” is a comforting word, but it means nothing. You have no concept of a time outside of time. You abuse metaphysical ideas often. So many of us do.
I was like a moth in her world, fluttering around with angel wings, dusting her candle with attention and compliments. Cigarette after cigarette, song after song, that one song, over and over again.
Writing her name on the wall.
Drawing her picture.
Her portrait.
A façade.
Is this illegal?
Is this defamation?
Is this the imitation of someone’s legal right to individuality and likeness?
I just want you to see it and know it was me.