Blown Dandelion on the El Tracks

Roses Are Red,
Violets Are Blue.
Sugar Is Sweet
And So Are You.

Was written on the pillar, holding the rails on the El track up, so the roar of the ghosts on the train can soar into my open window at night. I expected better, but hoping for the best. It was raining the whole day yesterday. It felt like the whole world was raining. Life goes on hold in the rain. Nobody drives. Nobody is outside but the ruffling smokers leaning as close to the walls as possible, climbing above into unturned sections. The street lights whistle folk songs in the drizzle as the everyday commuters find their ways home. And in the middle of this, it was me standing reading “Roses Are Red…” I see myself sometimes far beyond our precious atmosphere, like all the atoms in my body connecting like strings into this blank spot in the sky. The place I was once mighty star. Narrating the current pillar that is in front of me, the one that I have created one billion years ago.
On a brisk winter morning, I was awakened by a bird flying into my window. The momentous collision appeared at first as a rock being thrown, in attempt to wake me up and look to see my friend outside waiting for entree into my warm Printer’s Row loft in Chicago. I instead looked out the window to see a spattered blood pattern, arranged in a way that it was a high impact clash, caused by a soaring velocity and an element of carelessness on the bird. The damage seemed minor on the window, but not on me. I wept for the bird and this incident any made me realize the fatality of my own live.
I folded my clean laundry and chose my outfits for the new week. I never understood why I plan ahead like this, but it makes me feel secure. It seems like a contract with Death sometimes, like I’ll live another week, as long as my outfits are planned for it. Even without this reasoning, my apparel is still very personal to me, and it defines who I am. I take a mental inventory of clothes as I prepare them, making sure all items are account for, and none are forgotten in the drying machine. The building I live in is very strict about washing and drying machines not being installed in the complexes. The Laundromat across the street does the job. In the process of folding, I ran into my Death Cab for Cutie t-shirt of a raven being tied up in a red thread. I immediately threw it against the wall and I decided to take a walk outside to keep my mind on something else.
As I took the stairs to exit, I felt everything enclosing on me. There is one circular framed light for every floor in my staircase. On each of those lights, there is a drawn eye, encased in a triangle: artistic vandalism I supposed. On each of these floors, on my walks up the stairs, that I have promised myself to walk at least once a day, will stare at me. Not a stare like a stranger on the train or a guy seeing a beautiful girl on the street, but a stare that shot into my chest and juggle my soul. Each individual eye, reading a different hemisphere of my mind: collectively processing my thoughts, and leading me into an elaborate sabotage. Though, on some level, I feel somewhat safe in the view of these irises. They create this cloud, though only for a short amount of moments, feels that I have become the light that they produce. The hairs on my arms and legs and face run like pinnacle rays out of the sun, shooting straight for any defenseless tangent, and charging the voids into shadows that lay long and buckle into the formation of the stairs. Sometimes, in this holy trance, I feel the ends of my body stretching to opposite ends of the Universe, hands and feet gripping tight, because the drop is long way down. As I was holding tight on the block folds of stars and black holes, I ran into Rachel Goodman, a friend and neighbor of mine, which was on her way up to the fifth floor, the one above mine. She seemed in a state of shock, staring at the stairs as she walked up them, concentrating on something I’m unsure of. Rachel briefly looked up at me, and then back down at the stairs. As she climbed up to the same stair as I was on, it came to me that she was in a hurry. This seemed bizarre because she usually finds the time to have small talk with me, on subjects about the weather and trailers she seen on the TV. Not today though, before I could even speak, she took out keys, opened her door and closed it behind. All in the length of time it took me to say “what’s the matter?”
Rachel killed herself that day. She took fifty or so tablets of Diphenhydramine and washed it down with apple juice. Her body will be found two days later by her cableman. I couldn’t escape the thought, that if I just asked her what was wrong, she would have found hope. Just maybe I could have stopped her. Maybe I could have saved her. Of course, I didn’t think any of this at the time. I’m just sad I never made it to her funeral.
I was on the train late night. Going home. On the side of my ear I heard: “I heard through the grapevine that they shot the Pope. I heard that they have a magnifying glass up in space so glaciers will melt into bottles of Evian water. ”
The opening and shutting doors spoke names of streets that ran beside the El tracks. FULLERTON he announced, predicting the hopes on the next stop: BELMONT. An old, black bus driver was sitting next to me, grocery bags in his hands, holding watermelons and a 32oz. Miller Lite. I looked back to listen:
“I was a Rock ‘n’ Roll man, a Lou Reed man. I listened to KISS back in o’ high school.” The train’s audience applauded, slammed each other’s hands in the air and rolled in each other’s laughter. “You know what, I like you kids. Yourz generation is the future. You pay my social security checks, I just hope to God there is gonna be money left for you guys. Man oh man, I hope the best for you kids. You know why? You kids listen to Black Sabbath? But course you don’t, how can ya, MTV doesn’t play them.” The audience pauses, looked at all of each other and roared and howled and yelled more and more. Some of the commuters were still frozen in there usual lives, on phones, noses in books and newspapers, some with headphones on. “You guys,you guys,” the Prophet spoke and there was silence again. “I want all of you to join with me.” And he began: “IIIII….want to rock ‘n’ roll,” the four people closest to him were first: “allllll NITE.” Now ten….eleven….fourteen people, all together: “AND PARTY EVERYDAY.” Everyone’s lips were raised to the ceiling, laughing and fuck, we all forgot that we were all complete strangers. I joined in for the second verse: “IIIIII WANT TO ROCK ‘N’ ROLL,” I looked around and saw all the commuters with the phones and books and newspapers diverted, and looking at all of us, with smiles like Monet Lisa’s. Some even joined in, remembering the lyrics from their junior proms decades ago: “ALL NITE AND PARTY EVERYDAY.” And it went on, and on till my stop at Belmont where the singing transited to second hand giggles. We all looked back to who was for a moment Gene Simmons ‘eyes. He spoke: “Guys, guys, thank you, thank you. I want ya to hear one last thing: let God give you all the breakthroughs and the best favors from girls.”We laughed together one last time into our ordinary lives. Most of us exited, shaking the hand that led us to the realization: we are all to be forever young.
Once I got outside and out of that staircase, the sun sheltered me from the cold and forced me to release a small smile onto the wind. I was left to figure this one out on my own and didn’t feel responsible for this life of mine. I couldn’t foreseen this, the weather man sung the same old tune from far away eras and couldn’t stop his hands from shaking. I was able to relate though, since I too held important information that was not organized or categorized in any special shape or form. They were just words, left useless unless they were heard.
I decided to get a cup of coffee at the shop across the street. The cold breeze numbed my face and I had to cover it with the sleeve of my peat coat. This blinded me for a moment as I was across the street. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a car coming towards me. I immediately jumped back to dodge it, relocating myself to the other lane. It was prefect timing for a moment, till a car going the wrong way hit me. At this time, though, I was inside the coffee shop, watching my last moments of life; my last breath being taken. I don’t remember exactly the point where my live ended and my new consciousness began. It all happened so fast, I didn’t have the time to consider what happen. I didn’t really even care about the introspections; it just happened.
As I was carried away by the ambulances, watching myself through the gaps between people, crowding around the street, I started thinking if I lived a good life. If I knew it would all come to this, would I have kept on living. Would have I even bothered to fold my clothes this mourning? I couldn’t help but find it ironic that if I did actually finish folding, I would have been in the same seat, but alive. Thinking about it, if I knew the exact date and time I was going to die, I wouldn’t have changed a thing. You live, till you die, and when you die, you think about living. It’s an endless game people play, that there is no score keeper. I watched as the paramedics covered my face with a linden blanket. I remember one night when Rachel warned me about a flood that was going to drown everything humankind accomplished since the beginning. That is, if I truly believed this commentary to be accurate. It all just didn’t concern me. I wanted to live forever, but I knew about the ultimate fate that cursed us all from the skies. It wasn’t easy to avoid. All the newspapers drippled and informed us about the misery and unfortunate that was all about us. This flood of hers would be actually very good fortune. Maybe we could have a second chance, maybe society would stop running in vain and of greed and petroleum. Maybe it’ll save us from our ratchet ways.