Red Leaves, Gold Sun

Red leaves glowing as if in a dream in the gold evening sun. My hands pressed firm in my jacket pockets, hood up. Standing in the grass inside that same old weight, wishing it was night. Wishing I was asleep. Wishing it had fired. The easy whisper of the wind through the trees and over the dead and brown leaves around my feet. 

"I've been thinking about trying to write something about why I do this," I had said to Charlie a week ago.

"Fear," she said.

Maybe it was fear. Maybe it was some sense of shame or guilt, or desire for punishment. Hard to say. 

Drag from the cigarette, exposed fingers in the cold air. Exhale. No satisfaction. A churning need to walk away, run away, if I was ever able to figure out what that meant or where to go. Five weeks left to find a place to live and not nearly enough cash to do it. Nowhere to safely turn. I could never figure out how to live. Not for lack of trying, it just never made sense to me. Incoherent.

Same old weight. 

Go home? Sit in the dim living room? Wish I had made different decisions? Be thankful I didn't? 

The sun setting over a treelined hill, the brilliance of the leaves muting. The cold air creeping further under my jacket. Conversations and strange looks burrowing deeper into my chest. 

"Fear," she said.

Ineptitude, most likely. Maybe I don't want love, I want to long. Maybe I don't want safety, I want discomfort. Maybe I don't want happiness, I want to suffer. Maybe I'm trying to give myself excuses. Maybe it is fear. Fear of being okay, because who am I if I'm not okay? 

Drag from the cigarette. 

"You somehow think you're only as valid as the pain you think you have," Marie had said maybe fifteen years ago. She was probably right.

Drag from the cigarette.

Fucking cold out.

Wish it had fired. Wish I knew what to do. 

Butt the cigarette in the grass. Step on the embers and smear them into the dirt. Put the butt in my pack, and the pack in my pocket. Hands in my pockets. Cold in my bones. I hadn't had a drink in a month or so and I needed one. Five. Twelve. Twelve and a series of phone calls. Twelve, a series of phone calls, and a destination. 

Or a gun.

Leaves crackling under my shoes as I walk the half mile back to my car. 

Like Fruit

The Albany skyline against the pale pink and orange fall dawn. I hadn't slept. Standing in Ren's condo with my shit all over the couch, a hangover, and a cracked white mug of watery coffee. I had stolen one of her Vyvanse fifteen minutes back and it would be another hour and fifteen before it kicked in, before I had to be at work. The crawling sensation of wearing jeans and the same tee shirt for the last twenty four hours. The disgust of film, grime and sweat and dust, on my skin. The deep and blinding need to leave this fucking place. These people. 

The hope of this town had dried up for me. I kept picturing an orange, yanked from the juicer and tossed in the trash, slowly molding, slowly losing all familiarity. 

I had come here a few years back, trying to get home. Trying to build a home. And I tried. But poison laces the air here. Hope rots. We all rot. Fruit in the trash. I had had a series of bad relationships, my addiction issues had resurfaced. Ideation had become common again. I was right back where I was before I left almost ten years ago. Abandoning people I had little tolerance for, and hiding from the ones I loved. 

I had made some headway creatively, but not enough to matter. The most positive thing I could say about it all was that I had loved people I never would have met and I had a small handful of experiences that changed me, hopefully for the better. 

Fucking watery coffee. I hate a french press. I don't have time for it. A drip coffee maker with a timer is the only way to go. Set it up before bed, wake up to coffee. Alternatively, having a generous partner who happens to be a morning person (but one that lets you sleep and will crawl back in bed for coffee with you) could also work.

Traffic already deafening on the street below. People already honking, already shouting. I think of Transmetropolitan. I think of Mad God. I think of rotting fruit in the trash. They were all right. The near-dystopia writers and artists from forty, fifty, sixty years ago. It was all seeping up from the sewer and fast. We waded through it, pretending we don't notice it. Pretending we don't see it, smell it, taste it. We pretend we prefer it. We inhale and it burns our throats and fills our lungs and coagulates our blood and we love it. We love it we love it. This fucking town. This fucking world. 

Maybe the Vyvanse was a bad idea, but I needed to stay awake at work. To earn enough money to not be able to pay rent. 

"You up?" Ren asks half asleep from the other room.

"Yeah."

"Did you make coffee?"

"Fucking watery, but yeah."

"Okay." I hear her shuffle out of her bed, knock something over, and she comes out into the living room. "Morning."

"Morning," I say. "I'm going to head out soon. Get food before work."

"Okay. How're you feeling?"

"Did you ever see Mad God?"

"No."

"Like that."

"I've never seen anything. Is that good?"

"Right. Yeah, it's good."

"I'm sure." She goes into the kitchen to pour coffee and I begin to collect and pack my shit into the small bag I was smart enough to bring once I had decided I wanted to drink in the park last night. I finish packing, throw my shoes on, go into the bathroom and swish with her mouthwash. Splash water on my face, piss, and head back into the living room where Ren is on a chair drinking her watery coffee.

"It is," she says.

"I know."

I sit on the couch across from her. Stare at the silhouettes of obsolete television and satellite antennae on top of a building across the street. Someday they will rust and collapse. Not today. No, today they remain, tall and useless. Ever-present, ugly, and fucking pointless.

"I have to leave," I say quietly, meaning both.

"Okay. I'm probably going to skip work and sleep more. I didn't sleep at all."

"Me either." I stand, throw on my coat, a large green military thing, grab my bag and head toward the door. "Have a good day, though, regardless."

"You too, James. Feel better."

"Yeah."

"Drink water."

"Bye."

"Bye."

I open, then shut the door behind me. My head spinning. Vyvanse beginning to pulse through me. The street outside waiting to swallow me. Rot.

I need to get the fuck out of here.