Help.
I can't find the keys to my car.
But I'm leaving.
It's Winter.
It stopped snowing after the holidays, now it's just
cold,
and dry, and barbed wire fence.
I stare down the roads,
I walk on both ends of the street.
I bring my guitar to the woods, and say one last goodbye,
because all these random people are invading my life.
I need them to take me to the city.
Because I can't find the keys to my car,
and they're all waiting for me
out in the blue air,
and the empty trees.
Driving
down the evening road.
The night road.
Mountains. Buildings.
Places I've never been
pa** right through, pa** right by.
Driving
down the midnight road.
The dawn road, mourning.
Thinking about what I've left behind.
Not thinking about anything.
Talking. Listening.
The radio stations don't play here.
Just
static.
Thunder. Lightning.
Another night.
Where? Why?
Stadiums filled with people
glowing in the dark,
green and blue.
Hitchhikers.
They don't look like us.
They wear the same clothes, like
half police officers
half detectives.
Sleeping waiting why?
Why.
We reach the city. It's always nighttime there
we stay in a hotel. The city seems small.
The TV only gets one channel, it has no name.
The content always relates to something that was lost.
A lost fawn, a lost child, a lost dog, a lost celebrity, a lost wallet,
a lost mind.
They interview the owners, and that's all we see,
because there are no fawns, there are no children, dogs, celebrities, wallets,
minds.
Not in this city.
But we stay
because the apartment building is tall and modern,
filled with images of amazement.
I bought a notebook yesterday,
and drew inside of it the storyboard of my life.
And when I finished, there were all these blank pages.
I got a call from an old friend today.
She moved to a house, where she sits out on the porch
in a rocking chair, surveying the garden.
She would like to see me.
She would like me to meet my daughter,
and take her home, where she belongs.
She's 7, going on 8, but time moves slowly here.
I have time to get her before she loses my trust.
I didn't have time to ask if there was another person
who would also like to come with me.
I picture the three of us forgetting everything,
finding the keys to my car in the attic of my old house,
driving away under the cold winter sun,
asking questions about what happened,
with no need for answers.
Just the thought of seeing each other
wherever,
whenever.
Finding cold spaces in the outdoors,
returning the warm fireplace.
Wherever, whenever.
Driving under the night sky into dawn, into day, into evening,
into night.
But that picture isn't in my notebook.
I forgot to draw it in.
The blank pages are simply blank,
and it's up to me this time,
because I have control.
But I don't have control,
even though no one else does.
I keep getting calls from an old friend these days.
Sometimes I can hear a young girl's voice.
Sometimes I can hear a bird's song.
And sometimes I can hear a faint whisper
telling the girl how great she's been doing,
how great everything will be.
But she's not talking about me,
she's talking to her daughter.
That's all it is.
A way to make conversation,
a way to help her grow.
And when she's old enough to drive,
she'll keep the keys in her pocket
all the time,
just in case something unexpected happens.
Just in case she does something she might regret.