And I am too tired to care. My head is unfocused, worried about so many different things. I’m scattered, and I feel like things are crashing down, crushing in. I want that tiny, tiny corner in the back of some basement room to open up and swallow me. I was listening to Seth Horan‘s album Conduit and realizing that I just don’t listen.
I somehow missed them when I saw him perform, but as I was heading up the slope of the Earth on I-95, the words of his tune “Anonymous” shook me.
“You’re not a quitter just because you hate this chill.
Cause Even Ani flies South for the winter.
and Johnny’s long gone to the Hollywood Hills
You’ll be bitter if you wait around here too long
watching all your ex-lovers and all your friends
and recycling the same old songs
all alone among all these clones
growing slower than I ever planned
and even standing still“
And I’m thinking – isn’t this me? Heading for anonymity? I suppose this isn’t going to be a popular entry, and I don’t mean to say that I don’t value my friends, because I do – I Love them deeply. But I’m tired of watching every word that I say. I guess the smart solution would be to shut up. Don’t sing, don’t write, certainly don’t publish it rantingly on the world wide web. But it’s the only quiet 3.30am outlet I’ve got…
I’m afraid I’m closing myself in concrete and stagnation. I’m sitting so still and bogging myself down in politics and website mechanics and trying to be so nice.
This isn’t the way I want it to end, with me slowly winding down, getting nowhere and just getting tired of scratching the same circles on doors and walls, watching people getting sick of my constantly recurring face. Inertia and momentum are dying, and entropy really is gripping me, and daily I feel less and less energy in my muscles – a failure, a slip, and it will drag me down into the quicksand of the everyday.
I was driving to the beltway exit near my parents’ house, leaving Seabrook behind again. There’s a homeless man that Lives beneath the underpass there by 495 – his darkened, leathery skin is a stark contrast to the bristling white of his hair and his beard, and ir’s 11 degrees outside. His sign has occupied any number of different sheets of cardboard. They must decay and blow away and warp, and that and survival are his never-ending ever-repeating tasks.
I’ve long been fascinated by the homeless. Scratching a Living beneath the radar of the world. And this man has been a steady feature of the 495 underpass for at least a decade. I remember him from the school bus in high school, though then I think I was only dimly aware of what his existence really implied.
I remember him from as far back as 17 years ago. He’s almost always been there. I wonder where he came from, and how he gave up. And if I had the courage that I imply by my chosen existence, I’d know the answer already.
