My Northern Side Pt. 2: Gloam to Gloom
On my northern side again, but this time on an Amtrak train. Colder this time, the Columbia in all this darkness. The sun set last night, and as reticent as I am to believe it’ll rise again, I see the proof in the glow of dawn. Every word I write is wrong, misplaced, and misspoken. Once full, my heart is now empty, empty like the canyon laid bare below me. The head of hair you once dragged your fingers through is now as brittle and broken as the sagebrush on my western side.
Back in that station I crawl through memories of mixed messages. You told me to come home when I never should have left. The red hue of the day to come bubbles up on the horizon, the gradient from deep to fade, lighter at the top, the color I’m supposed to carry. Trying to outrun the sun, the sky's blue matches the water below, and I’m not sure who is reflecting who. I am but a mystery again, a stranger to myself, all the evidence collected to form a conclusion turned murky in the light of new developments. I wonder if this leather will protect me now exposed to all the elements. Do you remember when we ran home in the rain? Leaving you in bed in the morning and returning to your warmth. I’ve been accruing a tally in the redness of regret, paying nothing on the principal, paying nothing on the debt.
The silhouettes of cliffs and hills break through the confines of a far-off highway. The water ripples as the sun glints down across the Columbia. The paper mill in the distance steams across the flatland as I climb higher into the hills over the junction. The steady roll puts me in the past, entranced by what used to be but now feels artificial, separated from nature, synthetic like a memory I’ve crafted from my intention rather than its existence in reality.
Hypnotized, following the ripples of Columbian water, I re-live the stillness of aurorean light diffused against your wall and hardwood floor. I recall that soft breeze pushing through the stretch of French windows, catching all the motes in mid-air, how lightly they hung in the puffs of first blush. With the coolness all around us, I pull you in closer, my arm around your midriff, crawling up your sternum and clasping softly round your neck. I can still feel you nestle and hear your soft sounds of murmur and muted moans. On my hand, I trace over the memory of all your creases and crevices; in my palmar structure, I rediscover your balled fist planted firmly inside of mine. You rustle and squirm closer; turning to face me, you bury your face in my neck, searching for the warmth remaining. I wrap you up tighter in the crepuscular hour, losing my soul in all your tangles and tresses. I hold you for the last time as we fall asleep in the glow of dawn.
Yanked back to reality, your noticeable absence re-intrudes. The space I saved for you goes vacant again, evaporating like steam from the smokestacks of paper mills. Little inlets run the span of the Columbia, carving little peninsulas out of sediment. The bitterbrush grows on the distant sandbars. Seat 13, Praying for a violent derailment and violent demise. Off the bridge and into the river where I think I’d like to drown. I am smashing my face into the glass, trying to recreate a feeling from months ago. I’ll make the final payment with my life. What I’d give to watch the hills collapse, what I’d give to see a landslide. The banks overflow with water, sinking the boulders to the bottom and pushing past the boundary. I am ready to give myself back to nature and fade into the plush.
Looking out and through the pines, the river lies just beyond them. My brain flayed across seat 43 and on my way to hell. All the leaves are changing, dying in bright orange and purple, breaking at their petioles, abscised, and dropping, so cold in dire warnings. They litter the street, and I imagine you collecting a few to hold and smile while covering your face. The savage lands are thriving, bare, and growing grey; that breeze becomes a gale, blowing through and blowing straight. The coolness now a cripple, bit down it stings my face. My fringe is loose and fraying, drunk when I said that to you, became an enemy, never a friend again. I can’t go down this hole; my mind works me over and over, pushing me in again. I left it where it was and never said another word. I am lost inside unease; there is no comfort in the unknown. I saw you at the farmers' market. I wanted to say hi, but I know I no longer fit into your frame.
All there is Jamais Vu and the nature of separation. East to west and west to east, back again on the Amtrak train. The Columbia in Golden hour, aureate and clear, the shadows from light peaking just beyond the hills shimmer through the leafless trees. I wonder if you think of me while watching the sunset. When the sky burns aflame in those purples and oranges when we watched them from a truck bed or from your kitchen floor. Do you think of me in bright light or in the glow of gloam to gloom? I think of you in the shine of first light, in the moments before the rise, and the moments after the fall.
There are headlights across the Columbia’s circumference, winding the bends, it’ll be dark soon. A light finite and fading, the river set in still as the currents crash softly across the shore. As the light dims, the stars in a southern sky come out to greet me. Lonely on an Amtrak train, I lose focus as I begin to think of you again. Will this go away or just fade? I’ve been making meetings and taking steps. I put the bottle down for the first time in what feels like a lifetime, a tragedy on repeat for a new audience and new anxieties. A list of resentments and similar affects. What good does it do me now? No way to re-write, no way to do over, the past lays like fell trees on the side of the train track, just the blur of faces passing by.
Placing myself in a state of neutrality granted me the gift of desperation. Just as sensitive as I’ve always been but, there’s a newness to the numb. Devoid of chemicals, I’m a clone of my former self. A version nearly identical, more similar than similar, but something is missing, something that throws the whole thing off. Like an ingredient integral to a recipe that is only noticed once consumed. The me I am now fails a physical inspection; my texture changed, my shape malformed, in an orientation opposite or mirrored. My hands don’t look like mine; my eyes don’t see what they used to see. In a state I can’t shake, I don’t think I’ll age or grow younger, stuck, my soul held in place, the remainder to your long division.
