Blue Carousel Ride

It's Wednesday as I slip into the back 9 of this midnite high. I feel the last breaths of summer licking my face. Head in hands, gloved in dried blood and ashes, and the taste of fuck-it! shots still thick in my mouth. I want to rest now, but the moon is merciless. And this brokedown merry go-round won't let up for a fucking minute.

I'm bombarded by random details, pounding themselves in my brain. The light captured by that empty beer bottle on the sill, bristling with peeling pastel paint. The distinct shriek of a swinging screen door softened by darkness. The dead sunflowers on the unfinished wooden table. The rusted coffee can ash tray ... The smell of futile moments mixes with the scent of summer grass. And a stupid memory, blurred like butter on glass, visits me. Focus, damn it. Focus.

I'm heading, barreling, burning all 8, pedal to the metal, full blown, get-out-of-my-way-‘cause-I-don’t-give-a-fuck straight into a wall. I watch myself in this movie, frame by frame, and wonder -- in a moment of tainted clarity -- what the whole point is. A slide show plays in my mind of cleaner times, of a long ago version of myself when I was still holding the steering wheel and directions weren't speculations on the back of a cocktail napkin. Windows wide open. Still fast. And fast still. I turn to tell her to hold on, but nothing comes out. I at once feel nothing and everything. What's the fucking seat belt for?

She's bathed in dusk light, cooking some eggs with butter. And I’m sipping coffee while watching TV. I turn and watch her in the kitchen. And I’m hit. I fall all over, again. It’s like seeing her for the first time, and my hands begin to shake.

I close my eyes for a minute. Breathe. How could this happen? This possibility I so avoided and thought surely would remain filed under “There’s No FUCKING Way.”

The brake disintegrated into the same oblivion sucking me like a black hole. The bottle of gin, next to the cartons of Parliament, slides on the passenger-side floor. Ashes fly, guitar blares, and my world shrinks into this inescapable singularity. I fucked it all up. And this spiraling depravity has no kill switch. Hurling ourselves into this finale, we watch in perfect nonchalant, the electronic parade of disjointed images, deliciously overexposed. We're numb to the blatant truth we all run from but can't escape. Whatever will be will be...

The ride goes on. The wall gets bigger. If I somehow make it through, then what else can I ask for? More eggs, more coffee. And some time to watch her swaying in the kitchen...

But before that, pour me another. One more ride on the merry go round, Slick. I’ll pay you Tuesday.