Finish Line

10 hours until Daylight Saving. A deceptive sun streams in through your windows; outside your walls New York is freezing but you play along with its ruse. Refresh the tracking of cherry blossoms in the Botanical Gardens. It laughs at you. No matter. You know it will come.

The bus breaks down somewhere outside Detroit, you repack your bags to find them again. Think to yourself that as lost as you seem, isn't this exactly how you planned it? Re-read old words from another life, I don't want the home of my own, all those things, the money, the securities, the vacation days you have to plan months in advance. I want the simple Life, the pure essence. To struggle is to live. You haven't been this bored, boring, lifeless in years, and realize that you barely even remember that feeling. A young couple sat next to me on the flight reading Kurt Cobain's journals and talking about some gig in Brooklyn; he manspreaded and stuffed an inordinate amount of carry-on into the already crammed overhead bins, offering me slices of pepperoni with a smile. Words form in every quiet moment, they dance around you as you walk down Second Avenue, they keep you company in transit, in sleep. You are doing everything you said you would do. The rest is just static.