Words Of A Despicable Old Man

The first time I ever experienced an euphoric high
was the one time I was returning from a weekend
getaway, just out of town, when I was eighteen,
and the car glided on the road, and all was quiet,
and the hum of the air conditioner and the
occasional honk from an overtaking car were the
only sounds that could be heard. Of course, there
were seven in the car, and the bag pressed in my
back, and the small speaker I held next to my neck,
played a ballad of rock and roll- of pain and hope, of
misery and destruction and a feeling of deservingness;
the setting sun and the smooth tarmac, the continuous
fence along the side of the road, and the trees that dotted
the highway that I soared on, and the drums and screams
and anguish that dripped from the voices of people who
sang, what seemed to be, lullabies to my aching heart,
made the air purer, and the heart, a little less anguished;
at that time, the mind felt cleared, a one way path,
like it was in the throes of a particularly euphoric orgasm,
and there was something that fit, maybe the lack of
thoughts that had blinded me for everyday of my goddamned
life, and somehow, I felt like salvation was here, and that
perhaps what I had lacked is clarity, for everything looked
as if the it had been washed a hundred thousand times, over
and over again, and with each wash, everything-
the world, the mind, the soul, the universe, stardust, life-
for once, in continuous and perfect symphony, and not a
haphazard, misplaced situation, increased its intensity a
thousand times over. Of course, it happened just that once,
because looking for that feeling again, has left me broken,
miserable, demented, and worst of all, unhappy,
because I spent my goddamned life looking for it,
when I simply could have lived through it, many, many, many
times over, but of course, I was a fool to not know it.

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