Road Trip

Every time we make this drive, the gangly reach of the oak trees and empty road signs with plastic always seem to blend together. I hear it sort of, a crackling sound, aged by sun and the relentless Texas climate. I wanted to write about finding inspiration through bibles. Finding quotes in this great book that resonated with me like my grandmother does. But that would be a lie. I grew up a heathen. A lake rat, maybe a nutria like in the pond we used to shoot ducks in. I’m neither rich nor poor. I grew up with southern accents and burning wood scents. Crackling coals stoked in a fire built from ancient lands I’ll probably never know. Built from inquisition and stories of freedom. That’s all they were though, stories. Everything I seem to know about myself is found in this rippled reflection oscillating back and forth from fractured memory.

I’ve given up on finding the source of this memory through stained glass and blood. Instead of god I’ve resorted to other deities. One’s rebellious and outcasted by ivory towers. It still feels off kilter, however. Like I still have a foot within the bounds of pearly gates and gospel sounds. Maybe I’m supposed to be suspended here in the middle. Not quite tremendous but also not microscopic. In my mind I’m enormous and vibrant. I dance in gowns made from peacock feathers and silk. Colors fall down hurricanes, they turn around me the great eye. Sometimes I’m scared of my ability to throw huge gusts and destroy levees.

Sometimes is an understatement, I’m actually petrified of my ability to fuck everything up. The other night after some Dramamine, Lilith showed me a boat. On this boat, my one job was to navigate, to get it from point A to point B. Simple enough. Yet when it came time to get my friends across the lake’s vascular system I only seemed to find the fleshy membrane. The parts filled with stone and wind. I punctured holes in its exterior, I saw the masts sink below the surface. I saw my friends’ lungs fill with the cool water below. I ruined everything. Or maybe I was just the person who was magnetized towards ruin itself. It was shown to me again that night, cut to another scene on a dark road, much like the one I’m traveling on now. My friend like a wolf killed a man. In carnage, I watched as someone once an ally turn cruel and merciless. I did nothing, and before I knew it my cowardice was on the run. I was now responsible and on a journey to escape the grips of justice for a crime I never did.

That sort of always lingers on me. That shameful scent. Even with the windows down and my mother’s car going just below eighty in stains me. Keeps to my cloth like gold cigarettes and garlic. Yet before I know it; maybe it’s February now, the trees are green and pine. We are in Louisiana now, and the thick air is just strong enough to wash me of my sin. A possibility of piety now remains, a faith to have a clean conscience persists like the deep lily pad roots below the rippling pond of memories.