My bicycle's tires glide over glossy blacktop, a whir of black on black, as they have for so many miles. My feet on the pedals are as distant as two pine trees at the base from the peak of a mountain. Bands of muscles in my legs compulsively continue pounding out a road-eating rhythm that intertwines with the primal beat my heart plays against my inner ear under the melody of my ringing breath.
Somethings make no sense because you don't know why--once the why appears you understand. But then there are things, like your suicide, that make no sense at all whether you know why or not.
I ride on. My forearms and wrists are only iron clasps, designed to clench these handlebars right now. A fresh kiss of wind from a nearby rain storm proceeds by with a promising caress. This altitude in barren rock and startled heat before the storm.
This is rain you will not feel, like all the rain you will never feel again. I cannot imagine a soul, pregnant with such promise, bending to that sickle free of will. The effort leaves me ill.
I ride through it. A droplet teases the seething flesh on the back of my neck, evaporating in the salt already collected there. The roads roll on. I am lost. Below there are lolling hills, heavy with the grace of sun-ripening corn and an endless spill of think cotton leaves. They slide toward me in a silence that screams against the wiring of my wheels on wet asphalt.
You are not here now. Only remembered. A laugh as I suggest that you are right. Metallica is the best heavy metal band ever because of Nothing Else Matters. Few metal heads can make a symphony rock like that. How could you forget? Nothing else matters. Life is ours to live our way. Life was yours to live.
The roads ahead of me are all mere winding traces going somewhere uncertain, but certainly somehow the only eternity is riding on them. Time means nothing, and nothing else matters, but a chance to continue. Suddenly, I know, this is a not about a ride in the country anymore.
Its not a ride to get over the loss of you. Life is mine to live.
On a bike, in worn out shoes, ragged shorts, and a beaten Ani DiFranco concert t-shirt proclaiming, "here comes naked little me," I have reached another existence. I am in the heart of grief, savoring something that feels like life. It is without promise or rules, offering only choices. I continue. I ride through it astounded. Frightened at the ease of it. Guilty for seeing through the complexity without you.
How could you forget? But I remember. That is all that matters, and I am comforted by that simplicity.
The wind roughs the edges of my ears and slaps against my cheek, encouraging me as I turn east out of treacherous terrain toward the valleys of green. Broad black top spills downhill over the down-lands in a hurry. All there is. I ride through it. Nothing else matters.
Somethings make no sense because you don't know why--once the why appears you understand. But then there are things, like your suicide, that make no sense at all whether you know why or not.
I ride on. My forearms and wrists are only iron clasps, designed to clench these handlebars right now. A fresh kiss of wind from a nearby rain storm proceeds by with a promising caress. This altitude in barren rock and startled heat before the storm.
This is rain you will not feel, like all the rain you will never feel again. I cannot imagine a soul, pregnant with such promise, bending to that sickle free of will. The effort leaves me ill.
I ride through it. A droplet teases the seething flesh on the back of my neck, evaporating in the salt already collected there. The roads roll on. I am lost. Below there are lolling hills, heavy with the grace of sun-ripening corn and an endless spill of think cotton leaves. They slide toward me in a silence that screams against the wiring of my wheels on wet asphalt.
You are not here now. Only remembered. A laugh as I suggest that you are right. Metallica is the best heavy metal band ever because of Nothing Else Matters. Few metal heads can make a symphony rock like that. How could you forget? Nothing else matters. Life is ours to live our way. Life was yours to live.
The roads ahead of me are all mere winding traces going somewhere uncertain, but certainly somehow the only eternity is riding on them. Time means nothing, and nothing else matters, but a chance to continue. Suddenly, I know, this is a not about a ride in the country anymore.
Its not a ride to get over the loss of you. Life is mine to live.
On a bike, in worn out shoes, ragged shorts, and a beaten Ani DiFranco concert t-shirt proclaiming, "here comes naked little me," I have reached another existence. I am in the heart of grief, savoring something that feels like life. It is without promise or rules, offering only choices. I continue. I ride through it astounded. Frightened at the ease of it. Guilty for seeing through the complexity without you.
How could you forget? But I remember. That is all that matters, and I am comforted by that simplicity.
The wind roughs the edges of my ears and slaps against my cheek, encouraging me as I turn east out of treacherous terrain toward the valleys of green. Broad black top spills downhill over the down-lands in a hurry. All there is. I ride through it. Nothing else matters.
 |
| The view from the top of the ride. |
No comments:
Post a Comment