ode to young pilgrim

2003-09-21, 12:57 p.m.

it's justice aversion, how sweaty the brow gets before you drown, how filled with thistles your mind gets at times, the smell of 90 degrees on august emmits from my pores.

your eyes are closed so tight, it's almost like you supress their escape, a vacation from each moist cave they are nestled in. among the thistles and whistling thoughts; scream out loud to make your eyes stay down. your back, presses into the chair, tectonic plates shifting, each bone on your spin is shaking the samba to a slower-than-funeral-song beat. in the end, there is a bundle of muscle taught to cringe, tight to your shoulder blade, the face of those muscles are much too intense.

when i was young i remember coming back from lake tahoe, breaking down half way there. sitting along the highway at night, the car shook, with methodical quivers (could it have been afraid of the passers by?). we got a hotel room for a night, the light was cheap underneath the awning of motel 6, yellow stained into my hair and clothes. waking up was a chore that had been done a thousand times before, this was one time i cringed at the first things i saw.

how i felt, finding joy in the 20 ounce pepsi breakfast, i knew this was life for some 10 year old in texas, dusty road, dusty nostrils, arid thoughts simmering in boredom. the tow tuck was a different kind of yellow from the light of a motel 6.