I am trying not to take the world at face value.
But everything is breaking. My computer, my carkeys, the ceiling fan, the door. I kicked the door today when it refused to open in. I said, What do you want from me? I might have aimed that at the sky.
I have a bad feeling I can't shake. I feel jumpy, like a stretched wire.
There's a heat index of 100. There's five or more minutes waiting to cross the street, watching the tar bubbles rise. I cannot throw myself into work because it is too hot to work. I would braid my hair into chains. I would wear only a red hankerchief for a top. I would. I would drive all night.
What calms me is walking, playing music, and listening to music, but sometimes even that won't work. Sometimes, like today, I cannot find the right song from the hundreds of songs. Then I realized: Johnny Cash. Only Johnny would calm me. Only Johnny understands right now, this moment, the dying corn, crossing the tracks, the gathering storm.
Everyone has that friend, the one you call at three in the morning and expect to come, the one that will come, the one that doesn't mind if you're crying and drunk and rolling on the floor, that doesn't yell at you, that doesn't judge, that drops her plans, that picks up a bottle in a brown sack, and the buzzer rings and she's there.
I am that person. I will drop my plans. I will wake up at once. I will come. But sometimes even that person needs someone else. I need him to come, Johnny, the man in black. I need someone to come. And he can't.
