IGNITION

The goddamn alarm. The thing is a bitch. I've been waking up to it for over 30 years, and how I haven't taken my "Easton Assassin" to it is beyond me. Even as my muscles would tense to the point of snapping, with every downward swing of the aluminum spirit crusher, I could just imagine the psychic relaxation. The easing. Is that a word on a metaphysical level? If not it should be. That just starts it. That brief fantasy, (if you could call it that) fades with whatever horrible nightmare I may have had. What happened to good dreams? Even the dirty ones? They left me about 10 years ago, I think. Now it's twisted Chris Mars meets Glenn Fabry imagery of hellish fates and incomplete reaches for heaven. Shake em off, bro. Gotta get up. I stand in the shower without moving. Sometimes I cry. Oddly with the water pouring down my face, this is the only place I could get away with crying without people knowing. Generally, you shower alone, so the potential disguise is wasted. I don't even look in the mirror anymore. I tie my hair back really hard in an effort to feel something. Pain, perhaps? The fading youth that comes with the length? Duke makes me smile. He sniffs at my hand as I leave the bathroom and head to the kitchen to gather a bag full of caffeine. He sits before me, soft eyes studying mine with his unconditional love. I usually rub his head and tell him goodbye. He leaps into the recliner to watch me out the window. It's a futile exercise as the sun will not be up for some time. The stereo will be loud. It has to be, because the closer I will get to the chasm, the more it's balm will be needed. The news makes me angry, so I pass a few minutes on the windshield. Late fall brings pasty frost on the glass, the kind that requires a scraper, the kind that makes horrid screeching noises as it's peeled off the glass. Once I'm in the car, the news is flicked off for something else. Anything else. Despite the hatred for where I'm headed, anger is not what I want. I reach for my cd book and leaf through. For a time, it's not a disc binder, but a history book. My past flapping by me as I search for a chapter of my life, a snippet of my being encapsulated in a digital collection of 1's and 0's. "Suicaine Gratifaction" it is. Paul Westerberg's album has been the morning ride for better than a month now. It doesn't anger me, or incite rage as punk and thrash do, it just identifies with me. I still have to clench my teeth at times. Knuckle the hard vinyl of the steering wheel with fierce and negative anticipation of where I'm headed. The music will eventually settle me enough. Enough to put the key in and turn it. God, not again.