Sunday drunk on coconut rum. Not a flavour native to Michigan. But it reminds me there are better places in the world. And that’s not nothing. So I cling to it, like a mother does her special needs child to keep him from running into the traffic barreling south on MLK.
Tropical drinks downed against the backdrop of Midwestern blandness. It seems a reasonable response to the ridiculousness of it all. Because nothing here makes any fucking sense.
And I’m dying to get away.
Away from the stink of airplanes—yeah, I’m pretty fucking talented at kicking tin. I’ve set the early departure record multiple times. And someone up at corporate must have noticed that. Because they rolled back our scheduled departure. In doing so, I helped a multi-billion dollar corporation save another couple hundred thousand dollars. Oh. And the life of a pilot the night one of the feeders came in and immediately ended up catching on fire.
But so fucking what? That shit takes a toll. One that most can never truly understand. Unless they’ve spent time burning out on the tarmac.
So I need to get away.
Away from this fetid and constricted Capital City. This place where the potholes outnumber genuine people. And where the construction seems to linger on forever, leaving everything nervous and unfinished.
Away from the mental graffiti. Because those rattle can stains are everywhere. It seems like every part of this city for which I hold even modest memory is tainted. And no amount of alcohol can ever scrub them clean again.
I was happier back when I was miserable. Because at least there was some consistency. And not this constant uncertainty. Or the low simmer of unresolved confrontations lingering out on the periphery, just waiting to pounce.
I came up here for the sake of what proved to be just another lie; I refuse to die here for the sake of a broken promise. Especially when the bomb inside my head is ticking. And the time is all running out.
On the flip side of that not unexpected diagnosis comes the compulsion to make everything fucking count. To suck the marrow from life in a joyful, obnoxious celebration of the ridiculous.
Because why the fuck not?
When the plane is crashing, I’d rather laugh at the hilarity of that failure to soar. Steal another round off the catering cart. Maybe make one last terrible joke about my magnificent dong experience.
Because I’ve screamed enough for one lifetime. And I like to make my exit tethered to a different soundtrack.
Surrounded by counterfeit contenders, I struggle to pound out virtuous words before it all turns dark. To bring something genuine to the conversation. Because I’m fucking tired of all the dishonesty. And the games that people play with innocent hearts. Just because they can.
I never once claimed that I was perfect. In fact, I’ve spent the better parts of my life, and several hundred pages, documenting my shortcomings. Out loud and unfiltered in mistyped typos and lingering broken grammar.
But I never once pretended to be something, or someone, that I am not. Because that is an unsustainable lie. And I only know how to be genuine. Even if that reality is flawed. Or ugly.
Or, unwanted.
That unattractiveness is probably why I have been hating myself ever since I was a little kid. And since no one was ever able to show me a different avenue, I got stuck on that broken boulevard.
Pulling myself up by someone else’s g-string didn’t work. Running away across an ocean only scarred me. Staying still nearly killed me. And somewhere in the middle, I hustled myself from one bed to the next, just wanting to be wanted. But those connections never seemed to stick. Not after the better angels of my unpredictable temperament had been robbed the morning after, picked clean and kicked to the curb.
That romantic thievery left only the crust. And unlike the variety found at that little artisan pie shop I refuse to name, mine is unpalatable. Too tough to break through, too dry and burnt out to ever entice more healthy appetites.
So I rot away in the unpredictable Michigan weather. Collecting sin and kicking tin. Adding the clacking of typewriter keys to the background symphony of this frangible City. Pounding down drinks and dodging the stares of inquisitive strangers. Because yes, it’s a real fucking typewriter.
And I’m tired of that conversation, too.
Michigan and foxes were never meant to mesh.
That just isn’t the nature of things.
So I can only apologize for my intrusions.
And disappear, unloved and undomesticated, into the waiting nothingness of another broken boulevard night…
