Care for a Rant?

 I can feel myself aging.

Every time I feel like things are going all right, they suddenly aren't.

That's life. The eternal rollercoaster of bullshit. Self-inflicted hamsters wheel. Humanity's intense need to put things into boxes and label them. Organize your receipts. Get up and go to work so you can have the money to do the things you want to do in life. Only you never get there, do you? There's always a bill to pay for an invisible service you might never use but of course you need it. Have to have it. Superimposed on you by everyone else. Your predecessors fought for structure and restriction. We should have stayed fur-clad barbarians on the plains.

I don't know where this is going.

Fuck, I have no idea where I'm going. 

Like the sensation of sledding down an icy mountain. Keep going, avoid the trees, sometimes hit one, but always struggle to get back into that dangerous, cracked plastic, bright pink Walmart sled and keep going. Because some asshole at the top said there was something worth making it to the bottom for. And why don't we just bail? Might take too long. Might starve to death in the woods. Might get run the fuck over by the other idiots racing along behind you. Might get mauled by a bear, swallowed by the blizzard, might trip and break your leg and shit, then what?

I would rather be Jack.

I would rather be anyone else.

Maybe someone with power. Confidence. Charm. Flair. Necromancy would be a plus too.

I should be editing. But I don't really see the point anymore. I like my stuff. Other people say they do, that's cool. 

Ain't gonna pay the bills, bud.

I'm so angry all the time. Like a quiet buzzing in the back of my head, saying angry things at people, making me laugh when I know I shouldn't be laughing. But it knows when to smile. It's pretty useful I guess. Just another tool in my little utility belt. 

I wonder sometimes if this is going to break me.

And here I am -

 - just openly weeping into my boring bologna sandwich.

What the actual fuck, brain?

Dark Street

A dark avenue of thought in noir lighting is where my mind wanders,

Quickly past the pawnshop where I sold all my dreams.

I don't wave as I pass, cannot look in those dirty windows.

Afraid that one of them will see me and tell the others.

I shouldn't have worried; they saw me anyway.

I hurry by, 

Their fists bang on bullet proof glass; muffled pleas and wailing, echo, echo, echo.

My cigarette stays unlit in my hand beneath a flickering streetlight.

I catch my breath across from that diner.

Nostalgia crawls under my skin as I watch myself laugh and laugh inside.

That corner booth with endless coffee, the owner's tired frown, the careless disregard for time

The world being ours, ours, ours.

I almost go in.

I don't.

My cigarette lights with a breath of sharp bitterness, a party trick well learned.

When did it get so dark on this street?

Shadows cast by drifting doubts, heavy with rain, creep along the sidewalk.

I make it to the intersection, still closed for repair.

Equipment stationed like sentinels, 

Imposing but impotent and stuck with rust.

I inhale the sweet burning smoke,  

Angry red warmth lights the moody caution tape and road cones and the 'DO NOT ENTER' sign. 

I can feel my fingertips again; not yet

Not yet

Not yet having faded to a ghost in these dark streets.