Self-Imposed Exile & Coughing on the Ashes of the Past

Impending doom hovers over this town like some intoxicated, invalid, inbred vulture. Although it tries, stubbornly so, a hap-hazard hick-billy apocalypse, not unlike the residents of this waste-land, never quite seems able to hit the mark. Willful and wanton ignorance breeds rapidly, gaining strength and unexpected endurance with each generation of spawn still wet with Coors-light and primordial ooze. 

I sit here at the machine. At times we stare at each other in comfortable silence. We know each other well. 

Windows wide open bring a welcomed breeze and the summer sun that has long been hiding behind persistent rain clouds. There's the sound of a multitude of birds. The birds frequently migrate from nearby ponds and rivers to feast on the flesh eating spiders that make their homes in our consistently over-grown yard. 

       The sound of Lucinda clinking dishes, clanging the trash can, sweeping the dust from the wood floors. I have ancient mariachi music playing on 48s in the living room. The sweet sound resonates through-out the house, flows out windows and hits the street. Maybe it'll bring some comfort to our Hispanic neighbors who have been oddly distant since I was spotted shouting poetry while wildly swinging a machete at a patch of waist-high weeds. I had my reasons. Good ones.

Aside from occasional traffic or trains crawling pass the town sits in silence, hushed by Sunday and the hangovers of unskilled drunks. Lucinda comes in to brings me a thermos of coffee, bends over and kisses me as I dumbly tap away at the machine. The words spill out easy, fall from my head and make the fingers dance but the story escapes me.

What is it? 

What has happened? 

Was it really here? 

Was it really me?

How is it that I find myself in the middle of Kansas in a rent-free home with a one bedroom guest house collecting dust off on the edge of property. Bitching like some over-privileged trustee-baby. Some good-intentioned, well educated, talented people, out there, somewhere beyond the windows, insist that I am a writer, and so, I write. 

Here in my self-imposed exile. I masterfully alienated would-be friends with a combination of increasing bizarre behavior and bit of light cross-dressing. 

I have begun restoring the house. I have narrowed down my possessions to almost nothing but the essentials. I have stacks of aged papers and notebooks surrounding me here in my little office. I feel as if I am running out of time. I most certainly have run out of excuses. With nowhere left to turn the editing begins. A record of a ten year long rollercoater I called life. I remember the beginning. I know the end. The rest blurs together like a series of finger-paintings produced amidst an acid-fueled frenzy.

Kansas. Shit.

Central Kansas. Shit some more.

It all began here in this mutant hamlet. It's only fitting that it would end here. Tying up the stings of the 1st chapter of a life that left my nerves frayed and exposed.

I turn away from the machine and crush my ADHD medication into a fine powder for a more instant form of relief from a rapidly churning mind and see if I can set things straight. Give the story some sort of justice damn it. Although it might be more deserving of a trial.