You’re screaming down the highway late getting to something or away from something, and you know this is the perfect time to make those phone calls you’ve been putting off, the ones to people who want things from you, and not even from you, because you are just a vessel or an obstacle to them, and they haven’t the slightest idea who you are, and you know this because you haven’t the slightest idea, any more, who you are. Your fingers twitch, your responsible fingers, perhaps typing in air the numbers of these people for whom you are a number, perhaps forty-seventh on their list of items waiting to be done and forgotten, or the thirteenth person who hasn’t called them back this week. Your fingers twitch because they expect you to call, but instead you turn up Lyle Lovett because you think maybe he understands you better than these strangers at the ends of lines you know you should throw out, or maybe you understand him better than you do yourself. It strikes you that both notions are silly.
You cling to them all the same, because all we really want, any of us, is to know and be known.
We want to know and be known, but we are draped over sagging bones, peering out through failing eyes. Peering out and never in. So you turn up your radio and press harder on the pedal and the wind screams a little louder. You breathe. Maybe you’ll call tomorrow.
