has-been

for too long i’ve hidden behind the veneer of being up-to-date and current — for too long i’ve pretended i’ve understood what you said. i don’t understand. i haven’t. for years.

you tell me we’re on the up-and-up. meanwhile i’m smelling carrots like rain — meanwhile i’m sifting through the garbage for a spare plastic bag to rinse for my sandwich.

when we pose for photos what gets me smiling is how void it gets after flash. and that i don’t have to pretend a smile too: it just comes as anything else because my brain is empty.

i’ll write up a response to your message a year later. if you want a week advance then you’re going to have accept the 3 letters i’ve procured since. there aren’t any paragraphs out of me. it’s an out-of-body transfer, believe me.

we’re flipping through magazines from the 90s and i knew it then: i became the has-been. however much i kept up; however cool i could present, however much i could believe in my actions or adjusted mannerisms, brushed aside hair for a poised sense that maybe we’re in the midst of it and i need some balance. my meat body is rotting and i’m expired.

you talk a lot of things and you suggest a smart philosophies, but i could never make the courage and say it didn’t mean anything to me. i was just mesmerized by how much you could say, showing three sides of an argument while i”m picking gum off my shoes. i loved hiding behind your confidence.

if i had the chance to say something, it’d be a confession. that all i want to do is roam lancaster as another devil-headed roamer; some nomadic scourge.