I must
be of some alien race. Impregnated in an unsuspecting human like my
grandmother used to read to me about from the National Inquirer. I’ve
always had the sense of being askew, ajar, androgynous and several other
words beginning with the letter ‘a’ that suggest being somewhere in the
middle of something, but, nowhere in particular. I took this as a sign
that I was preordained, sent to this planet for some majestic reason not
to be revealed until the unknown day when the sky would open up and the
sun would crown my head and a voice would bellow Go that way.
I felt chosen, maybe a little immortal.
My
mother seemed to know this. She’d say to me, You’re special; you’re
going to do great things. Not great as in super or gold star, but great
as in Almighty, Divine, Monumental.
But the years have
passed and I’ve failed to prove in possession of any miraculous
qualities. And I’ve watched myself transform from the unrealized child
prodigy to the aging underachiever. So I guess I am then, just one of
the masses. Which brings me to another ‘a’ word I’ve become, post
potential-child-prodigy era: apathetic.
Down,
down into sleep, a fall which takes the all of me. Most people dream on
the inside, my dreams are inside out. When I have flying dreams, I jump
off the roof, off rock walls, off the side of my bed. Once, I leapt
from the bathroom sink.
The dreams have always steered
me stronger than my own will. I’ve never felt lucid in the light of day,
but I can hold onto the fantasies of the night. I play them out, the
entranced actor, jester of my own court. I don’t know who wields the
strings, but I’ve dreamt of a dark place, dark like the blacks of my
eyes. It’s a lulling darkness, and a place I seek in my waking life.
The
train is passing me by. Here I am, alongside the tracks, where I’ve
been all my life. The rhythm has been enough. Just to see the flash of
the boxcars, the color and steel, stream by me in a river of time.
Watching still air smack to wind, hit by the passing train. I thought
for years that this would be my life, all I could need or want until I
was the air myself, colliding with the forces that would whisk me into
the surrounding darkness: the darkness in the forest, the darkness of my
peripheral vision. The darkness that can’t be taken by the night. Earth
has been groped, measured and accounted for, but go up, clear the trees
and the mountains and the skyscrapers, and this house has no roof and
no walls, which is why I watch this train. I’ve never understood much
about specifics. My mind lacks the gravity to hold all the pieces
together. Things just fall apart, or, less severely, they float away.
That happens whenever I look up at the sky. Up and down are all relative
to where you’re standing. Since I’m not sure where to stand, I watch
the train.
2003
