5 June 2010

BY TRAIN - I arrived in the city, hot and humid as I ever knew, after a delayed start which began the day before, my resolve to awaken in time to catch the twenty one daily service from Fort Worth to Austin. Normally--that is to say when people aren't out in droves like summer bees buzzing and torn on the platform about where they should go, and who's bags belong with who.

On a plane this is much more controlled, and it is for that reason--along with expedition of the expedition inherent with flight--that I prefer the usual suspects, known better as the Airline Industry, to get me anywhere but home, or back to where my heart is not a damn day too soon.

But this, being summer, and me, being me--the uncertain sojourner of Capital proportion, whom's spending powers flux--I opted for the economical but still surprisingly comfortable and typically enjoyable railway.

Arriving at the station, the crowded bustle wasn't helped with the OUT OF ORDER letdown causing a sigh amongst many more than myself; My tickets bought online were unable to be retrieved without interacting with a human, my entry code punched into an impersonal kiosk who's sole role in life is rightfully printing my tickets, which I hand directly to the conductor upon boarding.

Tired, now, it's late, and I have traveled many miles and arrived a little late, back into the fray of "uh, I guess so yeah sure. Pour me another.

Of course, I studiously brought my trumpets along, and made sure to practice my fundamentals for about an hour before joining the games college kids play, and try to fit in until coughing, lazing, gazing, wading but swallowed by a wave.

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Blitzed and lying on the floor just staring at the ceiling. Merrily I droll along, let my mind wander off to the past. San Diego socks sliding rubbing round the carpet, swimming thoughts and tactile bliss, back alone again on my skateboard, cool salty air thick in my way all along downhill by Balboa, the concrete path led only deeper back into the fray, and into the center of the city, I disappeared, sometimes.

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I quit my job, like the one before that, and the one before that, and the one before that. I didn't want to deal with the awkward two week notice that leads inexorably to fake farewells, those 8 hours of full time bullshit made all the more unbearable.

Shirt and tie, trembling against the bathroom wall, digging through my pocket for my panic pills. This is something different, something I don't understand. I can't sleep, fearful streaming; Worried. I don't know what I think about it, and for all my medical research and news junkie ways, I don't want to read about it. Schizophrenia.

A manic depressive, in my case, a bipolar wrist cutter with brilliant euphoria beyond my control sometimes only hours later. What's got me keeping my cell phone in the closet, dormant even when it's turned on--seems nobody calls me--it's desperation that I'm drowning in psychosis; rage of pure paranoia. Fighter jets at three A.M., an increasing feeling that someone, for reasons that I wish I could undo, is waiting for the perfect crime; Car bombs don't make turning that key easier. Seeing things walking in the park that might not be there. A glance around in the coffeehouse, my world colliding with yours. Thought I heard somebody, but no one called my name.

On the road I catch myself gripping the wheel with such a grasp that my knuckles are white. If things are what they seem, a disturbing revelation that I want my life back, but I don't know what on earth to do.

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