taking the train back from Brooklyn,
or the LIRR from Suzanne's place.
Drinking Bud Tallboys, eating salty snacks
and swapping secrets to stay awake.
It was always worth it, to see/play the show,
and the night rides home were opportunities to continue living
in that psychic space, the show still ringing through my hoodie,
the lovemaking still reverberating my loins,
following me to a place where I was awake but not entirely conscious,
where I was raw & animal, my most base and true self.
following me to a place where I was awake but not entirely conscious,
where I was raw & animal, my most base and true self.
Lately I’ve been listening to Bruce’s Nebraska,
an album that is so stripped back and seemingly improvised
that his voice is entirely present & alive.
And he sings about driving, so many characters in his songs are driving all night,
driving to sights of earlier heartbreak, driving to “their baby,”
driving to commit monstrous acts, or to a wild night in Atlantic City.
In the wee wee hours, your mind gets hazy.
I’m often seeking this “haziness,” this lapse in routine and rote consciousness.
I don’t know why, exactly—other than it feels good to touch down into myself,
to edge against my capacity.
I have come a long way from that young man
I have come a long way from that young man
who would hop on stages and into beds,
but I still smell those nights that felt right and wrong at the same time,
like tempting fate to feel alive meant rooftops and subway stops.
At 2am, we are not baristas or substitute teachers,
we aren't even daughters or sons;
I exist on a plane of perennial possibility.