Citizens

The night in suburbia is fragile.  It makes me tense.  I see the citizens raking their leaves, preparing for winter, coming and going on their errands in their cars.  It makes me sad for some reason.  It's not that the people are ugly, because I don't know them.  What gets to me are the silly things people put on their lawns and houses to mete out the holidays.  Maybe the holidays break my heart.  The citizens just make me feel lonely.

I'm related to citizens.  I have a mother, a sister, a grandfather and aunts and uncles.  They're all citizens.  I, however, feel like a negro, an indian boy, a savage.  My memories of skies and streets are fading.  The only thing I notice are walls, decorated by my mother with artifacts of sentimentality.  No wonder I always ran.  Wherever I ended up, it would not stink of moderation and compromise.  Wherever, that is, until captured and locked in a stark box.

When I was on the porch smoking in the dark, waiting for the sun, as if the sun promised me anything other than light and warmth, the term "skag" lept into my mind.  I'm not sure if it's American or British, but I know what it means.  I tried to air out my psyche, but it's so dark and quiet and I'm trying not to make sounds with my footsteps on this old wooden floor in this small house.  The double-sneeze is too good to resist, so I make the noise. 

Music charms me.  I seek the feeling I get when life is light and there is no fear.  Drink used to bring me there, but I learned that the panic that sets in when the booze wears off is worse than the original state.  What then, to do with one's self?  Maybe I need to skateboard.  If I'm here in the spring, it would be dreamlike to hop a boxcar with a plastic recorder and play music to the rhythm of the train.  I will make it, god, right?