Mozaiks

"Se habla espanol?" Said a tall man to a nervous looking foreigner. My mind had been searching for the words to explain to him what I needed to know.

"Si, Si," he replied enthusiastically. When he returned to my register, he said two things to me: "First time," and "I know, next time."

"Some people yearn for the open road, some people just yearn for their driveways," the tall man said. I felt something, affection, complacency leaving my bones.

It's harder for certain people do things like, picking up the pieces of future mozaiks in Tony's backyard. Ceramic and porcelain that belonged to an artisan or a collector at different points in time.

"I wanted to prove to you on Sunday that I could get up and work."

I get up and work 6 days a week, school for 5, drink a cup of coffee in the afternoon, and lay my head on a pillow at night. Still I ask, "why am I not strong? Like the wheel that keeps travelers, traveling on." I figure in not too long a time, it will take me home.

But like I said, it's harder for him, and 5 hours, starting at 7AM is a huge accomplishment. My 12 hour days continue to go unnoticed, and the North acts as a Beacon of hope in my chest. I hardly think about Central, or Mountain time anymore. Just about the man on a box that is New England.

North Station, and places I used to explore on my own.

The Lonliest State

I don't get their jokes, they don't laugh at mine. I've been trying to smile more anyways, as if I could fool them into believing I found them amusing...I don't.

Still, in Lowell, I remember belly-aching laughs. Tirades that would last for months, become user-names, and facebook groups, and work its way around campus until you heard someone you had never met laughing about it.

I don't go to Church. I've been twice, maybe. Once for a funeral, once because I slept over a friends house on a Saturday. I've considered lying to my peers and telling them I was Jewish just so they would give me that same sad, sympathetic look they give foreigners. I may as well be a ghost, or the shell of a human walking about without a soul.

"You're a bad-ass, like me," Tim assured me in the parking lot. Great.

Still, I remember the glass crashing at my feet and the smile on that fiery red head, the Alaskan Fisherman. Afterwords, I thought he might come back to the store a second time. I realized later that that had been wishful thinking. I'd get on better anywhere else but this place. Every time I remember what it's like the get along with people, it tears at my heart. But being alone is okay too, I guess. I can't wait to go home.