My Road
2004-12-18 - 12:48 a.m.

The days are getting colder, and the nights are getting longer. Here in the city, the streetlights don’t have the energy to light up the darkness. They are content only to hold the darkness at bay. The ground is sparkling with a million icy crystals, moisture frozen into diamonds by the irresistable force of the cold.

And I, I stand with my face to the window, looking out across the empty streets. They are mysterious pathways, leading everywhere and being there at once. They are a train station, a plane, my ticket out.

My bags are ready, They sit in my room, a room once decorated with pictures and memories of a life that now seems to far away to even imagine. The pictures of the warm smiling Christmases are all in boxes. The trinkets and keepsakes of a life well-wasted that once covered the shelves and the dresser are in kamikaze piles on the floor. I’ll never touch their dead faces again.

In my right pocket, there’s a well-worn ticket. In sterile, monspaced text, it reads “Georgia”. I’ve already decided I don’t have to wait until I get there. When the bus stops, I’ll see where I am, and if it looks better than where I’ve been, that’s where I’ll stay. All I want is a place that won’t remind me of home, and any stange town will do.

Somewhere, there is a paradise where perfect people speak eloquent words, and miserable wretches are accepted as family. In this place, there are streets without darkness, and there is love without tears. There is pleasure without pain, and pride without debasement.

If there is no such place, I don’t want to know. I would rather spend a hundred years believing it is out there than to spend one day knowing it is not.

I will watch the empty roads, and when the time is right, I will follow them., north, south, east, and west, until I find my road.

Perhaps, at the end of that road, I will find the peace I seek.