Hostage

Time is escaping like blood from an open wound. It’s escaping freely and in copious volumes, but we are not. We are here, and not leaving. Freedom is drained of its vitality, like a raisin, and the beat drives hard, like a ’71 Mustang. A chipper little girl returns from the bar carrying two beers, one for her boyfriend, one for herself. They each belong to the other. Tomorrow they’ll both go to work, and so will I. Now we’re here. Then we’ll be there. This moment will pass like any other. So will that one. One moment bleeds into the next and into the next. Some are good. Some are bad. None are without choreography. We all belong to our destinations, obligations, relationships, and responsibilities. It’s easier than freedom. Perhaps freedom isn’t necessarily bleeding out like a gunshot victim, but instead is malnourished, like desolate soil that can no longer support life. Regardless, in this club, with this beer, I’m bleeding freedom all over my clothes and the floor. I’m a willful hostage, too scared to plug up the hole and be filled. I’m letting the moment flow through me. It’s one way of going. It feels like freedom, but not quite. It’s a reasonable simulacrum. What I really want is to go home, but not know where home is until I get there. I don’t want a map.

Holding the Bag

All our friends left. Jim and Ellen went to Philly. John went to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Mike went to Austin, Texas. Brad and Renee went to Portland, Oregon. Dana’s leaving for Raleigh, North Carolina in two weeks. Amy and Stamatis are headed for NYC in less than a year. Pittsburgh is an awesome wingman. It’s great for making other cities look more attractive. Our Saturday nights often happen the same way. My wife and I, sitting at a bar, asking ourselves what we’re still doing here.

Three Hot Black Girls at the Deli Counter

There are three hot black girls that work the deli counter at my local grocery store. I think they’re awesome, but I’m pretty certain that they hate me. I’m gently trying to win them over with my cordial, gawky, long-haired, creepy, white guy charm. It might work, eventually. I don’t know. I don’t necessarily need to lay one of them. I just need a smile.

Privilege

Privilege spoils proportionately. It doesn’t spoil like milk does. It spoils like a parasite. It spoils its host. Privilege creates a want for more of itself. Whether earned or given, it behaves the same way. It is a fat, loud, sexless, suburbanite, SUV-driving, credit card wielding, permed stay-at-home-mom on her way to the mall, fists spilling coupons.

No Reverse

Nothing can ever be as it was. The past should not be seen as a template for the future. Nothing previous to this moment has any existence beyond memory. What is, is, and immediately falls off into nothing after the cassette playhead passes. We are on that precipice, my friend, precarious, absurd, and smelling of gasoline. There is a lot of road, but none of it is behind you. That’s why there aren’t eyes in the back of your head. You are a creature for moving forward. You don’t have a reverse. Forward is the only way to go. It is that way because there is no other way for it to be. It is where all things go, even when they’re not going anywhere. Forward is inevitable, yet very costly, and occasionally it appears impossible. It’s not what you are trying to become. It is what you must be. Forward won’t let you miss your mark. Your responsibility is knowing where you’re aimed. That is a much greater task than it might first appear to be.