A Ride to Clear Things Out, page 1

I'm one of those type of guys; that likes riding mainly to clear out the mental cobwebs...when you've lost that childhood phantasm of mind; where it's contents didn't matter...when card board boxes were anything you wanted them to be; castle, race car, then the years of required school and training, start pushing out possibilities of your world aside; to make way for the definite and concrete. You start realizing that this world isn't yours to make after all. It is someone else's and you are bound and chained to that, either play by the rules and try to find your slice...or get labeled and medicated to silence the screams of desperation; away from others that force themselves, to keep muted and quiet.

There are two sides to a person; the side you know and the side others know. Very few people can converge the two into one; pull the public mask off glued by years of studies, peer pressure, and expectation...and save their contrived sanity in the process. Slogan's like suck it up, do your duty...can no longer be laughed at in literal child like glee(doo your doodie); they are instead a conceptual cage of, walk the line, take the burden, and shoulder the role lain out for you, just like every good citizen before you has.

We sometimes hit these dilemmas; were the real self and the public self, collide. We turn to someone that we know understands, or a chemical to create a new set of emotions, something anything to close that widening gap of where we want to be; to where we actually are. 21 years ago, I hit this gap and the more I looked...the wider it got, the more I talked, the wider it grew, the more I drank, smoked, snorted, booted, #ed; the deeper it sank trying to draw me into itself. The plastic on my mandated facade was slipping away beyond my control.

17 dirty bong loads, a cocktail tainted with black market sprinkled hype, illicit snow dirtied yellow brown and muddy resin down. I take a shot of Ever Clear, flinging the old screen door open, and hit my back porch at sun set; I stuttered down the steps out to the shed...popped open the gas tank on my engine of freedom and topped it off, with the yellow piss this world revolves around. I cracked my wallet for a double check, a singular 20 waving me onward; another's debt yet to be claimed. I kicked her over and hit the road...just seeing how far I could get before Andy J left me; subtracted down to nothing.

I hit the newest extension of I-40; and pointed my front tire west.

The mind will make up some weird # to keep itself entertained; when you've thought all you could think out; barreling down the interstate 6 hours in, 32 hours awake, who knows where I-40 West is the only sign I need. The painted lines are my friends; stretching out their arms to everywhere I'd like to see. 6th tank? evening of second day, 50ish hours awake...I giggle at my painted white friends, pretending they're strips of TP wiping my ass as I haul down the center dashes. Smooth flat road all to myself and every joke so inside you wouldn't get it.

I woke up the 3rd morning, snuggled up with a peyote cactus; bike laying 10 feet away kick stand sunk into the ground...slowly piss staining itself out of the cap. I manage to my feet and run my dry tongue across my teeth it matches the landscape, gritty and scorched with little to no brush dotted with specs of cacti, the tip glides the peaks and valleys of my molar mesa as I peer around; I spy a long wide winding snaking track over a dune; where we slithered in sometime past. I walk over to my fallen hero and pick her up; I roll her over to meet our new little green friend and prop her foot up on a flat rock.

I thank my friend for the hospitality of us in this domain; and sacrifices me a drink; splitting open the flesh and sucking on the pulp, shock paddles my dead mouth to life. I notice a few of it's spuds missing some fresh and some long gone, roll my fingers over and onto the last two remaining; One for me and one for you I utter or mutter aloud or silent who knows? I bury that half of my green host so it can rest. I pocket the little hitch hiker, and lay back in the red earth; arms folded as a finger pillow laced like a grand mothers doily.

I blink; and the sky is now black with millions and billions of stars, I let my eyes glaze like looking at a 3D picture to see the real image...the tiny white pixelations grow more and more in number until the whole sky is like looking at a white bed sheet with your head under the covers...a tear ducts release, and I blink the ordinary sky back into focus.

Unhappy that it is one I recognize; I close my eyes. The sky seems to sense my unhappiness...I hear a small zip noise like the sound of cartoon spaceship rocket, or super hero flying. I open my eyes and peer straight into the blackness of space...nothing is in my periphery except my steel woman. It's nothing but me, her, and the everlasting sea of stars. They start pulsing and slowly moving with those zip noises leaving short rainbow trails, re arranging and then I no longer see the constellations burns in my brain. But a pulsing breathing and ever so slowing twisting organism like a black sea of living aether not apart from oneself. I and my metal banshee slowly meld and fall into the black fine mysts of the universe...consciousness lost.

I awake, at home on my couch; sit up and run my hands over my face...I yawn wiping crust from my eyes; leaving a trail of clothes on my way to the shower. I stay in just standing head under the multiple streams eyes closed, cupping water in my hands releasing them occasionally; to hear a splat on the porcelain. The well water tastes good; a little on the iron side...but better than that chlorinated, fluoridated, # in, sea of tampon water inside the city limits. I stay in even after the hot water runs out, eyes still closed the phone rings...I step out and walk briskly through the house to answer the phone before the machine gets it.

I hear a familiar voice of a good old friend; he's thinking of heading into town for the weekend; and wants to know if he can hang at my place. I said sure come on down, I grill some steaks then we can meet Chris and the gang for some drinks...I also just had the most crazy #ing dream, we'll have pull a few bowl fulls and talk about it. He said; that sounds rad, see you in a few hours. Cool man; later.

I'm pretty well air dried when I hang up, I walk back to the bathroom grab a towel; then shuffle the path picking up my clothes trail back up. I reach my pants; thinking I better check to see what the situation is...I pull out a crumpled five, a one, a few coins, a couple of receipts, red sand mingled between it all and a little green hitch hiker.

I really miss when gas was under a dollar a gallon, and the desert a dream within a dream away...

Sometimes; you really have to get away and just ride to clear things out.

Maybe a few people will understand this tripe of a journey...or experienced something similar; feel free to share it.

*I wrote this a few years ago, reading and writting was something I really enjoyed so much, it became all consuming a microcosim in the macrocosim to avoid a lot of things in life, seems we all still do such in our personal preferential bias's and it is in the things shared is where we find unity, sharing ones that cause division is sometimes better left unsaid.

Build your own bubbles then blow it in the direction you want your life to float, and it ceases to be a dream