Roll the Window Down

I was often told as a kid
that those who speak to themselves
are the people to watch out for.
To keep an eye on.

Well,

that doesn’t seem to have stopped me
from having in depth conversations
with the newspaper
and the TV
and the air that surrounds me.
It’s comforting.
I can completely understand why
so many mutter so many words
under their breath.

I live by myself
a half a block away
from the last block in
a twenty block town.
It’s quiet here.
There is nothing for two hundred miles
just past this road.
This house is mine
and I’ve spread out in it
Although there is a room I don’t go into
because I have nothing at all in there
and I have no business having
any business in there.

I read a lot.
I write a lot.
I zone out to computer games
and shows
and a few movies
and when these things get old
and when I have nothing left
I make up stories and act out my part
like a playwright.

None of this is to say
that reality hasn’t set in.
I thoroughly understand what this means
to the rest of the world.
This means I need an eye kept on me.
I need to be watched out for.

Lately I have been taking out my motorcycle.
I’d be on it now if it didn’t throw
one of the cylinders
on the way to work yesterday,
but I’ll get on it and fill the tank
and open the throttle wide as I can.
I’ll grab the tank with my knees
tight as I can
and throw it between lanes
and think about where I am in the world.
Inevitably it ends
infinitesimally
worthless.

I grab the clutch hard
and slam it down a gear.
Push the little engine a little harder
and try to beat
that yellow light
somewhere on U.S. 1
that is such a metaphor for so much
in my entire life.

On the bike I’m comatose.
I am a machine.
my mind continues on rolling over things I’m better off
just ignoring
and just living
somewhere around 3rd gear.
On the bike it’s alright
to be by myself.
It’s okay to open the throttle all the way.
It’s not a problem to ride down an abandoned street.
It’s just expected of me.

And when I take off the helmet
wherever I happen to be
people only wonder where you came from.
not why you’re by yourself.

I know I am an intrinsic person.
I am okay with this.
Sometimes I just wish the rest of the world was.
We are not the enemy.

This house is bigger than my apartment
and is certainly big enough for me.
Once in a while
this girl I know comes by
and we make up stories
and act out our parts
and write long tales
and burn them in the backyard because we know
that nothing is right with us
and that we are not right for anyone,
but it all just makes me miss that perfect city
where I can ride every street
endlessly
for seven bucks every hundred fifty miles.
I used to do twice that in a normal night.

I look around and sometimes marvel at what I see.
I still have a lot of hope in mankind
and though I’ve lost all faith
I still want to believe that everyone
has the ability to be good
or at least a better person than I
(which isn’t even saying much).
I continuously persecute myself
for my crimes,
but that’s alright.
I’m the bad person here.

It has recently struck me
or at least slightly bumped into me
that I should wonder why I am so lonesome
yet so at home with it.
Is it that I am just used to it
or that I am told so often that it is bad?

Do you know what it’s like to be on your own
for twenty-three years straight?
Shit. I’ll be twenty-four in a month,
but that’s alright.
I’m the bad person, here.
Watch out for me.
Keep your eye on me.
You never know when I may leave this corner
for the door
and that scares the shit out of you.
That’s it. Persecute the realist.
It’s okay.
I am, apparently,
the enemy.

Shit.
My mouth has become dust.