Bermuda Highway

I sat across from you, belly bloated with blueberry cobbler and vanilla bean ice cream, as the waiter, a freckled kid whose name-tag said Rick, handed you the bill. Absently, you pulled some crumpled dollars from your wallet, and I began to stand up, peeled my thighs off the leather seat, exhausted from this tour, and goddamn sick of Alabama. But you - you did not move, just took another sip of your lukewarm coffee,
another long drag off your cigarette, and that distant look in your eyes woke me suddenly from my daze, made me sit back down.

"I'm... I'm going to ask her to marry me," you said, slowly,

And you had never looked more nervous or young or excited. Blood drained from my face, my skin burned with withheld tears. You weren't even aware you were doing it, but I saw you twisting your napkin in your lap, fingers tearing and ripping unconsciously. All I could do in reply was stare at the white paper shreds as they fluttered towards the dark, vacuous floor beneath our booth, lost forever with the peanut shells, the sawdust, the cigarette butts, and the life I had dreamt for us.

At night I like to walk down to the graveyard by the ocean, resting my head upon the graying, weather-beaten headstones, fingers groping at the weeds, staring up into the inky black sky -- this way, when death comes to take me, it won't have to drag me too far.

Seeing his sickly white paper-thin skin again, there on the bed providing little contrast with the dirty, fermenting sheets, save the purple blossoms that...

Purple blossoms, sickly plum-colored polyps, discolored, overripe, circular, menacing, bittersweet blemishes marked his body, the modern man's leprosy in all its glory -- it was a sight to behold then, this once-familiar man I once knew completely transformed, his body responding too late to warn me of his invisible poison. A glance at his sunken face, once deceptively handsome, now revealed every emotion, every ounce of hatred his mind had concealed from me, and it exemplified my hatred of him, and our kinship in this nightmare.

The blood on the glistening sidewalk ran down with the downpour, its thick opaqueness thinning and breaking down - fierce red became a clear pink as the white cells separated and bid their farewells to one another. The rain kept falling, a gentle yet firm rhythm beating like a drum over my umbrella. Wait - I never carry an umbrella? Was this a dream, just a dark place in the cavernous recesses of my mind that I forget about upon waking? Seeing his body there, dispossessed...

President Bush, anyone?
Thank you, Dylans.
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Permission now to let this thing land
I'm too far gone to know where I am
Conditions are worse than we planned
Permission now to let this thing land

Heading straight into the blackness
Beyond the point of ever turning back
Slipping off the radar through a hole in space
Goes the passenger sitting backwards

Adam took the apple, I was not involved
I'm not responsible for how lost we are
Batten down the hatches, extinction calls
But Adam took the apple, I was not involved

Heading straight into the blackness
Way beyond the point of ever turning back
Slipping off the radar through a hole in space
Goes the passenger sitting backwards

Maybe a rumble
Maybe nothing more
Maybe a thunder
There before she blows
Maybe not a big bang
But just a little white noise

Into the furnace of red twilight
Threading like a needles through searchlights
Fading further and spinning right
Into the furnace of red twilight

Heading straight into the blackness
Too far gone, now there's no turning back
Slipping off the radar through a hole in space
Goes the passenger sitting backwards.

Sometimes I walk around town looking at faces,
Wonderin' why their bodies go to silly places...
Walkin' past the carpet mills, looking in and takin' stills,
Your ass, it draws me in like a Bermuda highway.
Oh, don't carve me out!

Don't let your silly dreams
Fall in between the crack of the bed and the wall.

Two times I fell asleep in a dirty basement
Snoozing in cobwebs and the cement.
Sometimes I wonder why that meek guy got all the fame,
Maybe I'm to blame for his short bitter fucked up life.

"And if this moment is gone in a flash
And my hand in yours become ash in ash
And everyone becomes just dust in the blast
At least this day will be our last."

Somedays you just have those kinds of days. They don't come very often. But I can honestly think of a few: trips to Disneyland with Taylor, who I have only recently realized I miss dearly. Lying on the floor at Jen's house, happy and drunk and 17 and loving every moment of it. Racing down Kanan Road trying desperately to make it to the beach in time to watch the sunset, and standing by the life-guard tower. Getting high for the first time in a random jacuzzi as rain started to fall. Driving down the 101 with Lindsay and Melissa towards Marie Callander's, laughing at our horrible first sexual experiences. Laying in the grass staring up at the sky for hours. Seeing the Wallflowers at the Ventura County Fair by the sea with a friend who I may never be close to again. These are the moments and people I will never get back. Life is so bittersweet.

"People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles."

Funny, when he told me I'd make a great mother, I laughed, believing it was something I'd never want... but I was wrong.

"Turn the fucking TV off," Karen snapped at me before slamming the door on her way out.

I pretended not to hear her, but once she was outside and I could hear her angry black leather heels click-clacking down the driveway, could hear her angrily slam the car door, I pressed the mute button on the remote and waited until I heard her start the car's engine and back out of the driveway. I sighed a sigh of relief, though no one was around to hear me and empathize and then turned the volume back up just in time to hear the closing music begin to roll over the credits on the Maury Show, damning Karen for making me miss hearing who had fathered the bisexual Alabaman's four-year-old son. I flipped through the usual basic cable channels first - the Jerry Springer Show (repeat of yesterday's airing), the Dr. Phil Show (not the second half of the special on out-of-control teens I had been dying to see), Unsolved Mysteries never solved after creepy Robert Stack died (a child put in bed by his parents at nighttime, vanished without a trace or sign of forced entry when they went to check on him the next morning), old episodes of Will and Grace, the Cosby Show after Denise had left the show...

This was the way our mornings usually went, Karen heading off to work in her Mercedes while I sat on the couch in my underwear with a copy of the L.A. Times Career section on my lap, which I promptly recycled once she was safely around the corner, headed for the script agency she works at. Things hadn't been so good with us since she'd returned to retrieve her Coach purse a month or so ago and saw me outside in the driveway minutes after she'd left for work, about to slam the lid on the recycling bin. My farce had become unveiled, along with her resentment of me and our relationship in general. Why couldn't I have just thrown the paper out in the trash like most people? I've been called a liberal before, but the truth is, I really don't give a shit about the environment. Karen's right about one thing (okay, I'll admit here privately that she's right about more than just one thing) - I'm selfish. If I'm liberal, it's because I want to keep smoking what I want to smoke and doing whatever and whoever I want to do (not that I had sundry options at the moment or anything). Unless every tree on Earth is uprooted and made into pads and pads of paper while I'm still alive and kicking, I say saw away.