10-6
I will never underestimate the relief a good night's sleep can bring, the previous night's suffocating anxieties washed away with the morning's benevolent and glowing potential, even if that morning is spent in rainy Dallas traffic, frustrated to the point of homicidal thoughts, chain-smoking menthol cigarettes.
But now we're giggling in a quiet, intelligent house in Little Rock, being put up for the night by a quiet, intelligent black man in a Ramones hoodie named, simply, T. We're fully saturated with beer and weed, smoked out of one of Harry's apples (without his consent). The night went extremely well. I gorged on blackened tilapia tacos, and I made it to T's house without killing anybody. And now here we are, stoned and giddy and cackling like hyenas. This living room is, at this moment, the only place I'd like to be, our drunken little Loki vigil interrupted only by T's roommates irritably stumbling through on their way to the bathroom, or to walk their dog. They are all female, and they are unimpressed.
Turns out I was premature in my earlier dismissal. I still hate Texas. It is an unbelievable relief to be in Arkansas.
We were originally going to stay at another house, full of partying punk rock kids. The free beer and cute roommates were enticing reasons to stay, but after a .38 got pulled and waved sloppily around the living room, and after a big black girl with biohazard tattoos (and who arrived driving a hearse with questionable personalized plates) tried repeatedly to molest Doyle (or so he claimed), we decided to take T up on his offer for a quiet and more prudent decompression chamber. We have a long drive to Lawrence tomorrow.
So here we are, giggling.
I owe:
Walt: $2.41 (coffee, peanuts)
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Rainclouds and Cigarettes: Off Days in Texas
10-5
I just don't have the energy tonight. A long, shitty, grey day in Texas. My distaste for this sprawling, dull state has returned. The people are rude, the food and cigarettes overpriced. My head has been pounding for hours. I feel like stamping my cell phone into pieces. Too many words were spoken tonight, and perhaps too many more were left unsaid. I don't know which is the greater tragedy.
Two days without shows have ruined me. Tomorrow we resume the long haul, a show a night 'til kingdom come. My hyena tongue is salivating at the promise of smokey bars, snowy loins, the never-ending blacktop, and the painful, beautiful sting of music in my ears, cranked up and drunk, like a knife dipped in honey, stabbed into my brain.
Arkansas, I miss you and all of your old promises. Little Rock meant something to me once. I'll tell you all about it sometime.
10-4
Sort of a lonely night in Austin, the kinda night country songs are written about. Faces missed, all kinds of faces.
Hungover all day, jumping on a trampoline and daydreaming about vampires. Cigarettes, tomato juice. I had to wash fucking cat piss out of my Levi's.
These days of relaxation are spoiling us. We have a long, long road ahead. Tonight I am beset with a sort of homesickness, but for where? Which home? Beset with longing, but for whom? For what? If there's anything a certain cold night in Las Cruces, NM taught me long ago, it's that these road feelings of skeptical angst and anxiety are easy to overcome. Let them naturally pass, lost to the whistling wind like smoke from a cracked window, disappearing like the horizon in a rearview mirror. Do I lose a bit of empathic humanity if I decide this is truly the life I want to lead? Is it worth it?
Maybe what I'm losing is made up for in what I gain; a purposeful, lonely sense of self. How do I know about the world? By what is within me.
"Maybe in the American park I am just a cow chewing a bit of discarded tin foil. Maybe everything I care about has been eroded away and I am just a gaunt idiot whose ribs are cracking under a Southern sun. Maybe I am standing on a dead planet in a scientific film and because everything is strange and new I miss the beauty of it. Maybe my desires are too human, too tangible, too immediate." - Henry Miller
Maybe Miller has it all ass-backwards, though I must admit the imagery is striking.
Oh, and I won't forget the rainy Austin dreams, bracing myself against the wooden railing in front of the bar.
I just don't have the energy tonight. A long, shitty, grey day in Texas. My distaste for this sprawling, dull state has returned. The people are rude, the food and cigarettes overpriced. My head has been pounding for hours. I feel like stamping my cell phone into pieces. Too many words were spoken tonight, and perhaps too many more were left unsaid. I don't know which is the greater tragedy.
Two days without shows have ruined me. Tomorrow we resume the long haul, a show a night 'til kingdom come. My hyena tongue is salivating at the promise of smokey bars, snowy loins, the never-ending blacktop, and the painful, beautiful sting of music in my ears, cranked up and drunk, like a knife dipped in honey, stabbed into my brain.
Arkansas, I miss you and all of your old promises. Little Rock meant something to me once. I'll tell you all about it sometime.
10-4
Sort of a lonely night in Austin, the kinda night country songs are written about. Faces missed, all kinds of faces.
Hungover all day, jumping on a trampoline and daydreaming about vampires. Cigarettes, tomato juice. I had to wash fucking cat piss out of my Levi's.
These days of relaxation are spoiling us. We have a long, long road ahead. Tonight I am beset with a sort of homesickness, but for where? Which home? Beset with longing, but for whom? For what? If there's anything a certain cold night in Las Cruces, NM taught me long ago, it's that these road feelings of skeptical angst and anxiety are easy to overcome. Let them naturally pass, lost to the whistling wind like smoke from a cracked window, disappearing like the horizon in a rearview mirror. Do I lose a bit of empathic humanity if I decide this is truly the life I want to lead? Is it worth it?
Maybe what I'm losing is made up for in what I gain; a purposeful, lonely sense of self. How do I know about the world? By what is within me.
"Maybe in the American park I am just a cow chewing a bit of discarded tin foil. Maybe everything I care about has been eroded away and I am just a gaunt idiot whose ribs are cracking under a Southern sun. Maybe I am standing on a dead planet in a scientific film and because everything is strange and new I miss the beauty of it. Maybe my desires are too human, too tangible, too immediate." - Henry Miller
Maybe Miller has it all ass-backwards, though I must admit the imagery is striking.
Oh, and I won't forget the rainy Austin dreams, bracing myself against the wooden railing in front of the bar.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Rainclouds and Cigarettes: Austin City Limitations
10-3
Drunk. Don't wanna write.
Biscuits and coffee for breakfast. Got caught in a torrential, apocalyptic downpour, so we sat and smoked cigarettes in a quiet little gas station until the storm subsided. I tried to steal a pack of cigarettes but was caught red-handed. Listened to Spiritualized in the van. Austin looked like Gotham City; owlish skyscrapers shrouded in mist and moonlight. Mild anxiety attack, mild claustrophobia. Watched pretty girls strut down the avenue. On the guestlist for the Queers show in an outdoor venue. It took me three tries, just now, to remember how to write a capital, cursive "q". Still not sure if I used the correct form of "capital". Capitol? I smoke too much weed, it dampens my vernacular fire. Danced with an anonymous punk rock girl during "Punk Rock Girls". Yummyyummypunkrockgirls. Bonded over Townes Van Zandt with some locals. More free beer. Tonight we're staying with a very sweet goth-nerd couple who have promised us grilled grass-fed locally-raised Texas hamburgers tomorrow. They're super-sweet. Mind the coyotes outside.
Oh, no one has to know
We'll tiptoe around the crows
and the lilacs
Drunk. Don't wanna write no more.
My ears are never gonna stop ringing.
Drunk. Don't wanna write.
Biscuits and coffee for breakfast. Got caught in a torrential, apocalyptic downpour, so we sat and smoked cigarettes in a quiet little gas station until the storm subsided. I tried to steal a pack of cigarettes but was caught red-handed. Listened to Spiritualized in the van. Austin looked like Gotham City; owlish skyscrapers shrouded in mist and moonlight. Mild anxiety attack, mild claustrophobia. Watched pretty girls strut down the avenue. On the guestlist for the Queers show in an outdoor venue. It took me three tries, just now, to remember how to write a capital, cursive "q". Still not sure if I used the correct form of "capital". Capitol? I smoke too much weed, it dampens my vernacular fire. Danced with an anonymous punk rock girl during "Punk Rock Girls". Yummyyummypunkrockgirls. Bonded over Townes Van Zandt with some locals. More free beer. Tonight we're staying with a very sweet goth-nerd couple who have promised us grilled grass-fed locally-raised Texas hamburgers tomorrow. They're super-sweet. Mind the coyotes outside.
Oh, no one has to know
We'll tiptoe around the crows
and the lilacs
Drunk. Don't wanna write no more.
My ears are never gonna stop ringing.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Rainclouds and Cigarettes: Tigers, Tacos, and Texans
10-2
Writing feels like a chore tonight. Not because of any sort of exhaustion, real or imagined, physical or mental, but just a sort of general irritible apathy that arises at the thought of pushing this cheap pen across this cheap notebook.
Seems like my hardened distaste for Texas may be softening, though I've only been in the Lone Star State for a day. We stopped barely a mile past the Texas border at a rest stop that turned out, by the best sort of serendipity, to also be a visitor center for the Blue Elbow Swamp. We took a long walk on the wooden boardwalk, admiring the cypress and Spanish moss and turtles.
We arrived in Houston much earlier than expected, so we spent the day slouching around the beautiful Rice University campus, where the boys were slated to play a radio show later in the evening. We drank coffee and followed gorgeous college girls around for several warm hours, the surprisingly majestic Houston skyline rising above the dancing, stretching trees that were carefully planted along the grounds.
The show tonight was closed by a band called the Hates, who formed in 1978 and have been a fixture in the Houston punk scene ever since. The bass player wore a studded leather vest and knee-high mocassins, and spent much of the show lunging and spin-kicking like some sort of Nordic god, long hair tossed with the manic energy not seen in many musicians half his age. The singer and guitarist was of indiscernable ethnic origin, with a tall orange mohawk and a stage prescence that called to mind Joey Shithead, from DOA. The soundman, a polite older fella in a Stooges shirt who wore a small red metal vial of unknown content around his neck, informed me that this charismatic mohican was nearing sixty years old.
Side note: While still in Louisiana, we stopped in a ramshackle little town called Grosse Tete, where we saw several signs for a live tiger exhibit. The exhibit consisted of a single large cage, in which a solitary male tiger paced back and forth sullenly, paws treading a well-worn route about the enclosure. It smelled like shit, and was wholly depressing. A banner fastened to the cage read something like "SAVE THE TIGERS! HELP KEEP THE TIGERS IN GROSSE TETE." Fuck that. Set 'em free, and let 'em feast on the fatty pink flesh of their second-rate captors.
The women in Texas have been, thus far, beautiful. The beer is excellent, and the equally excellent Mexicano radio station played in the van all day. We ate asada tacos from a mobile taqueria for lunch, and deep fried tacos from Jack-in-the-Box for dinner. I'm all out of cigarettes.
Writing feels like a chore tonight. Not because of any sort of exhaustion, real or imagined, physical or mental, but just a sort of general irritible apathy that arises at the thought of pushing this cheap pen across this cheap notebook.
Seems like my hardened distaste for Texas may be softening, though I've only been in the Lone Star State for a day. We stopped barely a mile past the Texas border at a rest stop that turned out, by the best sort of serendipity, to also be a visitor center for the Blue Elbow Swamp. We took a long walk on the wooden boardwalk, admiring the cypress and Spanish moss and turtles.
We arrived in Houston much earlier than expected, so we spent the day slouching around the beautiful Rice University campus, where the boys were slated to play a radio show later in the evening. We drank coffee and followed gorgeous college girls around for several warm hours, the surprisingly majestic Houston skyline rising above the dancing, stretching trees that were carefully planted along the grounds.
The show tonight was closed by a band called the Hates, who formed in 1978 and have been a fixture in the Houston punk scene ever since. The bass player wore a studded leather vest and knee-high mocassins, and spent much of the show lunging and spin-kicking like some sort of Nordic god, long hair tossed with the manic energy not seen in many musicians half his age. The singer and guitarist was of indiscernable ethnic origin, with a tall orange mohawk and a stage prescence that called to mind Joey Shithead, from DOA. The soundman, a polite older fella in a Stooges shirt who wore a small red metal vial of unknown content around his neck, informed me that this charismatic mohican was nearing sixty years old.
Side note: While still in Louisiana, we stopped in a ramshackle little town called Grosse Tete, where we saw several signs for a live tiger exhibit. The exhibit consisted of a single large cage, in which a solitary male tiger paced back and forth sullenly, paws treading a well-worn route about the enclosure. It smelled like shit, and was wholly depressing. A banner fastened to the cage read something like "SAVE THE TIGERS! HELP KEEP THE TIGERS IN GROSSE TETE." Fuck that. Set 'em free, and let 'em feast on the fatty pink flesh of their second-rate captors.
The women in Texas have been, thus far, beautiful. The beer is excellent, and the equally excellent Mexicano radio station played in the van all day. We ate asada tacos from a mobile taqueria for lunch, and deep fried tacos from Jack-in-the-Box for dinner. I'm all out of cigarettes.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Rainclouds and Cigarettes: NOLA
10-1
I backed the van into a parked car today.
The New Orleans morning met us warmly with coffee, cigarettes, and sweet Greek biscuits. We spent the day wandering around dirty business districts, reinvigorated post-Katrina. While browsing a guitar store, we were witness to a car wreck as a burgundy pick-up sailed through a red light and smashed into a yellow Volkswagen. For the next few moments, the scene was pure spectacle; people hugging and crying, gasoline pouring from the Bug and collecting against the curb, smoke and shattered glass and confusion. All the while, an older man sat outside the guitar shop, spraypainting several PA speakers and trying his best to remain impatiently oblivious to the drama about him, framed in metal and splintered fiberglass and noise.
The afternoon was spent lazily at Jason's house. Jason, an old acquaintance of Harry's, resembled a hip, gracious Danzig. He gave us espresso and red wine, and we smoked marijuana out of a leopard-print pipe.
I worked door at the bar, arguing with drunks and a persistent little asshole from Holland. Afterwards, fortified with several free beers, we headed carefully back to Harry's parents' house, where we ate turkey sandwiches and drunkenly discussed exactly what was wrong in that farcical world of smoke and mirrors known as American politics, a world where the bottom line is the infallible dollar, and the price too often paid for with the blood and sweat of the caste of ignorance. Rights, as we perceive them, as "free citizens", are just solid lines drawn through and around the godlike potential we've been blessed with since our privileged births. Ignorance is our greatest obstacle, save perhaps fear, though any enlightened individual can surely see that fear and ignorance are hand-in-hand, disguised as silver bangles, wards against those who would dare threaten our vague notions of liberty and security, and that ultimately serve solely as shackles.
Houston tomorrow. We leave early. I hate Texas.
I backed the van into a parked car today.
The New Orleans morning met us warmly with coffee, cigarettes, and sweet Greek biscuits. We spent the day wandering around dirty business districts, reinvigorated post-Katrina. While browsing a guitar store, we were witness to a car wreck as a burgundy pick-up sailed through a red light and smashed into a yellow Volkswagen. For the next few moments, the scene was pure spectacle; people hugging and crying, gasoline pouring from the Bug and collecting against the curb, smoke and shattered glass and confusion. All the while, an older man sat outside the guitar shop, spraypainting several PA speakers and trying his best to remain impatiently oblivious to the drama about him, framed in metal and splintered fiberglass and noise.
The afternoon was spent lazily at Jason's house. Jason, an old acquaintance of Harry's, resembled a hip, gracious Danzig. He gave us espresso and red wine, and we smoked marijuana out of a leopard-print pipe.
I worked door at the bar, arguing with drunks and a persistent little asshole from Holland. Afterwards, fortified with several free beers, we headed carefully back to Harry's parents' house, where we ate turkey sandwiches and drunkenly discussed exactly what was wrong in that farcical world of smoke and mirrors known as American politics, a world where the bottom line is the infallible dollar, and the price too often paid for with the blood and sweat of the caste of ignorance. Rights, as we perceive them, as "free citizens", are just solid lines drawn through and around the godlike potential we've been blessed with since our privileged births. Ignorance is our greatest obstacle, save perhaps fear, though any enlightened individual can surely see that fear and ignorance are hand-in-hand, disguised as silver bangles, wards against those who would dare threaten our vague notions of liberty and security, and that ultimately serve solely as shackles.
Houston tomorrow. We leave early. I hate Texas.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Rainclouds and Cigarettes: Prologue
9-30
It was a long drive through Mississippi today. The van is enormous. I've never drove such a beast before, though I of course lied and said that I had. By the end of this month, I will have become one with the machine. I am the American Dream.
I enjoy reading aloud the names of towns, rivers, bridges as we pass the title-bearing signs. Some are so peculiar without the softening lens of familiarity, and they dance and roll off my tongue, bounce against my teeth.
listened to: Zen Arcade, Hank Williams, the Pogues, the Clash, Nick Cave
We are staying with Harry's parents in New Orleans tonight. His father is an old Greek man who speaks English in a thick, elegantly clumsy accent. He served us steaming bowls of gumbo, and Harry's gracious mother presented us with her homemade bread, warmed in the microwave. Afterwards, we ate beignets and drank hot chocolate. I am satiated to the point of idle, glorious contentment, but plagued with mild heartburn. I will sleep well tonight, stomach full, in a clean bed with soft sheets. It is important to cherish these small moments of domestic comfort and bliss, as approaching there is a month of the complete opposite. The comfort and satiation are a waning moon, and tonight I sleep in its warm glow.
Maybe I'll try to quit smoking on this trip. It's certainly not economically feasible, considering I can't even afford to feed myself. Ian owes me money, but that's in Ohio, which is weeks away, and it's uncertain that our arrangement will even be carried out, relying on checks mailed across several states, and various letters explaining positions and arrivals, or that he'll even be able to respond to my demands.
Get in shape. I need to get in shape. Tonight I did forty-five push-ups, went outside for a cigarette, and then did forty-five more. One step at a time. I wish my cell phone worked better.
We listened to Link Wray as we drove over swamps and Lake Ponchartrain. The roads in Louisiana are hellishly uneven and bumpy. Link Wray was the perfect soundtrack, crusing along the highways and causeways and bridges, the smell of mud thick in the air, the view to our left, southward, dark and desolate, what was surely the delta and the Gulf and beyond.
9-29
Woke up strung out. Not much sleep the night before, as I stayed up late packing and re-packing, deciding which books to bring (I settled on Henry Miller, Vine Deloria Jr, Rimbaud, The Shining, and a couple by Prabhupada), and writing last-minute letters. Writing, always writing.
Coffee gets me through the day. I enjoy my coffee with cream now, though the notion once disgusted me. Left for Memphis at half-past two, eating at a Mexican restaurant along the way. Listened to Gram Parsons, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Billy Bragg, and Nirvana. Wandered around truck stops, buying bottles of water and more coffee. Smoked cigarettes and admired Megan's profile as she drove.
Memphis now, gorged on catfish and a root beer float. We are staying in the guest bedroom at Harry's house. Harry is the frontman and driving force behind the Angel Sluts. His house is idiosyncratically decorated, with fine collections of music and books, and towering stacks of recording and engineering magazines. Somewhere unseen is his home studio.
Tomorrow we drive to New Orleans. Harry's mother has promised us gumbo.
I have bills and obligations looming somewhere in the distance, but in the distance is where they shall remain. This month will be a time of thoughtful liberation in the guise of an inebriated shotgun blast, riding the currents of gunpowder and wanderlust, caving to adolescent impulse. I have sixty dollars in my wallet, and a supreme doubt that this meager sum will last even a week or two on the road, let alone an entire month. Death to doubt. I hedge my bets and err on the side of righteous indifference and the blind, grasping Hope and Faith that I share with a blessed few.
I need be reminded that I chose this life for a reason. Fear and anxiety have turned my muscles to jelly. A new spine is to be forged.
Writers: Sherwood Anderson, Kenneth Patchen
John Stuart Mill?
It was a long drive through Mississippi today. The van is enormous. I've never drove such a beast before, though I of course lied and said that I had. By the end of this month, I will have become one with the machine. I am the American Dream.
I enjoy reading aloud the names of towns, rivers, bridges as we pass the title-bearing signs. Some are so peculiar without the softening lens of familiarity, and they dance and roll off my tongue, bounce against my teeth.
listened to: Zen Arcade, Hank Williams, the Pogues, the Clash, Nick Cave
We are staying with Harry's parents in New Orleans tonight. His father is an old Greek man who speaks English in a thick, elegantly clumsy accent. He served us steaming bowls of gumbo, and Harry's gracious mother presented us with her homemade bread, warmed in the microwave. Afterwards, we ate beignets and drank hot chocolate. I am satiated to the point of idle, glorious contentment, but plagued with mild heartburn. I will sleep well tonight, stomach full, in a clean bed with soft sheets. It is important to cherish these small moments of domestic comfort and bliss, as approaching there is a month of the complete opposite. The comfort and satiation are a waning moon, and tonight I sleep in its warm glow.
Maybe I'll try to quit smoking on this trip. It's certainly not economically feasible, considering I can't even afford to feed myself. Ian owes me money, but that's in Ohio, which is weeks away, and it's uncertain that our arrangement will even be carried out, relying on checks mailed across several states, and various letters explaining positions and arrivals, or that he'll even be able to respond to my demands.
Get in shape. I need to get in shape. Tonight I did forty-five push-ups, went outside for a cigarette, and then did forty-five more. One step at a time. I wish my cell phone worked better.
We listened to Link Wray as we drove over swamps and Lake Ponchartrain. The roads in Louisiana are hellishly uneven and bumpy. Link Wray was the perfect soundtrack, crusing along the highways and causeways and bridges, the smell of mud thick in the air, the view to our left, southward, dark and desolate, what was surely the delta and the Gulf and beyond.
9-29
Woke up strung out. Not much sleep the night before, as I stayed up late packing and re-packing, deciding which books to bring (I settled on Henry Miller, Vine Deloria Jr, Rimbaud, The Shining, and a couple by Prabhupada), and writing last-minute letters. Writing, always writing.
Coffee gets me through the day. I enjoy my coffee with cream now, though the notion once disgusted me. Left for Memphis at half-past two, eating at a Mexican restaurant along the way. Listened to Gram Parsons, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Billy Bragg, and Nirvana. Wandered around truck stops, buying bottles of water and more coffee. Smoked cigarettes and admired Megan's profile as she drove.
Memphis now, gorged on catfish and a root beer float. We are staying in the guest bedroom at Harry's house. Harry is the frontman and driving force behind the Angel Sluts. His house is idiosyncratically decorated, with fine collections of music and books, and towering stacks of recording and engineering magazines. Somewhere unseen is his home studio.
Tomorrow we drive to New Orleans. Harry's mother has promised us gumbo.
I have bills and obligations looming somewhere in the distance, but in the distance is where they shall remain. This month will be a time of thoughtful liberation in the guise of an inebriated shotgun blast, riding the currents of gunpowder and wanderlust, caving to adolescent impulse. I have sixty dollars in my wallet, and a supreme doubt that this meager sum will last even a week or two on the road, let alone an entire month. Death to doubt. I hedge my bets and err on the side of righteous indifference and the blind, grasping Hope and Faith that I share with a blessed few.
I need be reminded that I chose this life for a reason. Fear and anxiety have turned my muscles to jelly. A new spine is to be forged.
Writers: Sherwood Anderson, Kenneth Patchen
John Stuart Mill?
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
FARMER
We have busted knuckles and sliced fingertips, blood shed on limestone and offered back to the earth. Those summer days baked our skin into scales and leather. I used to daydream about railroad tracks plowing through the sky, and raise my eyes to watch that train roar by. At night, there was a boxfan in the window to soothe our burns and aches.
Oh, I learned so much about myself. I feel older now, but none the wiser. The choices I've made have offered little solace. I find inspiration in my father, and I pray to Gawd that he never feels defeated, for then I too will feel only defeat. He is my barometer, and that farm will always be my home. I can never fall too far, too hard, knowing what waits at the end of old Slate Road.
I've woken up shaking and sweating on bathroom floors, and I didn't think I was going to survive this summer. But I can't bring myself to throw away what I don't need. Maybe it'll prove useful someday, like chicken shit and tablescraps. What else did I learn on the farm?
I want to say so many things to you, but so many pairs of ears would hear it, and believe it meant for them alone. They'd all be wrong. This is for no one anymore, no one but myself. I'll keep my head down, humbled but not broken, and keep tilling and sowing and reaping, baking in the sun. Someday I'll pull the scales from my eyes and change my name, like Saul on the road to Damascus.
I just want to spend my days like dreams, and save my abstractions and selfless hope for my father and his farm. There is no hope for me, the way I've been carrying on. Oh, look at my father. My back's just as bad, and my heart's just as sore, and I'm not sure I want to be a farmer anymore.
Oh, I learned so much about myself. I feel older now, but none the wiser. The choices I've made have offered little solace. I find inspiration in my father, and I pray to Gawd that he never feels defeated, for then I too will feel only defeat. He is my barometer, and that farm will always be my home. I can never fall too far, too hard, knowing what waits at the end of old Slate Road.
I've woken up shaking and sweating on bathroom floors, and I didn't think I was going to survive this summer. But I can't bring myself to throw away what I don't need. Maybe it'll prove useful someday, like chicken shit and tablescraps. What else did I learn on the farm?
I want to say so many things to you, but so many pairs of ears would hear it, and believe it meant for them alone. They'd all be wrong. This is for no one anymore, no one but myself. I'll keep my head down, humbled but not broken, and keep tilling and sowing and reaping, baking in the sun. Someday I'll pull the scales from my eyes and change my name, like Saul on the road to Damascus.
I just want to spend my days like dreams, and save my abstractions and selfless hope for my father and his farm. There is no hope for me, the way I've been carrying on. Oh, look at my father. My back's just as bad, and my heart's just as sore, and I'm not sure I want to be a farmer anymore.
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