Waiting For Life To Begin.

I am falling apart.

Or so it seems.

The one year anniversary

of my exile

is rapidly approaching.

And truth be told,

I don’t feel any better.

In fact,

I feel worse.

God damn,

I am.

God damned me,

And so I will be.

Nothing has gotten any better.

The ache inside of me

seems to grow exponentially,

with each passing day.

What hurt yesterday,

will hurt tomorrow,

only just a little bit more.

Nothing gives me comfort,

anymore.

I am riding home from a hard days work

The physical toll on my body,

has caught up with my mental fatigue,

and I am separating at the seams,

as we pull up to the shop to off load

all the tools and trash

from our days labor.

My partner in the crime of hard work,

is humming a song.

It is a familiar tune.

It is a song that moves with the cadence

of a steady moving freight train

through the heartland.

It is the kind of song

that becomes instantly popular

amongst smart and arty people

and then quickly becomes a cliché.

It is enjoyed,

but then reviled because of its popularity.

It is Pete Yorn,  Life On A Chain.

And Tommy

just won’t stop humming it.

He eventually starts singing it

as he bops along,

stowing away the tools from our days trade.

I can feel myself just drowning in mid air.

When all the implements

of our physical destruction

and reconstruction

are tucked away,

on dusty and greasy shelves,

we shut the heavy old wood

and steel doors,

second test the locks,

and climb into the truck,

and head back down my old familiar streets,

back to his home,

just blocks away

from my old home.

Before we turn from the alley,

Tommy pulls out his I-pod,

and dials up Pete Yorn, Life On A Chain.

He turns it way up,

and begins to sing along,

with the freedom and happiness

that I am no longer capable of.

He’s tapping out the beat on the steering wheel

As we cross over onto Fleet Street.

I am dying inside.

I don’t know why.

And I know why.

“I live on a chain.”

And we glide down the hill

from the top of Highlandtown,

across Clinton, Elwood, and East Avenues.

And at each intersection,

at each stop sign,

and pause,

the hell inside of me starts to rise up.

As we get closer,

I realize I can’t hold back the ache.

We come to a stop,

at the intersection of Fleet and Linwood,

and I am completely engulfed in tears.

A right hand turn,

and I would be on my way,

back home,

back to my old home.

“I was alone, and you were just around the corner from me.”

I place my head against the window,

and it feels as if the weight

of my tears could shatter the glass,

as I look down

Linwood Avenue,

and desperately imagine going home.

Tommy turned the music down,

“I’m sorry Murdoc.”

Me to Tommy.

Me too.

I learned towards the radio,

and turned the stupid song up to full volume,

and we sang our hearts out

the next couple of blocks to his home.

We beat the dashboard silly

like a couple of lunatics,

to the cadence of a song

that sounded like a steady moving freight train

through the heartland.

An hour later,

I was sitting alone

with a heart full of lead, broken glass, and choked back tears,

out back of my new home,

by the water,

watching the sunset,

tapping out the beat to a song,

on the arms of an old Adirondack chair.

And the sound it made,

was like a steady moving freight train,

fueled by sorrow,

through the heart land.

Nothing has gotten much better.

http://youtu.be/_XwOeJW_9HU