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
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,
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.
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