thanksgiving morning.

I don’t feel at home anywhere. Without skateboarding, I would feel little in life. Existence through pain. Attempting to enjoy this solitary  existence I chose,  I walk with my back hunched over into the cold, morning wind. I stride past a row of ancient trees that stand gaunt; stripped of leaves.  Later, I pass red brick houses where warmth & life shines from the window glass….calling  to me. I smell wood smoke, baking ovens, and the coming rains. I hear a child’s shrieking laughter and the playful yapping of dogs from the well-kept lawns. Bundled into sweaters, the children kick a colorful, blue rubber ball around and wave innocently. A fresh- faced young woman saunters past; her red, laughing mouth curled like flame. She has hair spilling over her shoulders like dark sea foam. Her walk is mockery itself. Silk, legs, lies. I look away into the gutter. It seems a fitting gesture.

Pushing my hands deeper into my wool, plaid pockets, I wrap myself tighter into me. Protection. Defense. I am my own. Alone, I wander the boulevards-up & down-while the dry leaves are blowing. In me, there is endless weeping. Every night, I watch the sun hiss itself into the green sea. Every dawn, I welcome the sunlight into my room, like an old friend. Repetition. Monotony. Before bed time, I indulge myself in flannel, hot Chai tea & old musty books.  Rimbaud, Rilke, Verlaine, Baudelaire. I deem myself a poet of the dark leather armchair…yet know that I am but a cipher; nothing.

Candles cast wavering shadows on my walls; like ghosts…they speak to me in a language forgotten when Rome was young. Sitting quietly, listening to George Winston-‘December’, I hear the tree branches tapping & scraping on the glass of my bedroom window. Life moves by the house in a shadowy world of crime, chrome and headlights. Furtive whispering; shallowness. Deals are made & escape is found. People find each other; gasping and hurried like young lovers anxious to please themselves. They share their pathology. All life moves and still I sit…pondering. For what? Thank you to Kyle Lightner for the images. Without which, this would simply be a useless collection of words. Skate Strong-Ozzie