To Find Your Way Home

Shitty rifles. Taxes. I got caught up. My friends came down to the park. When it happened, I was tired.

‘It hurts just thinking to about. I was going to die.’ I thought.

The office us at the port rock near the boat. The water bobbed. I missed my mom’s French Toast, the smell of my brother’s hair as I kissed him awake, and my dad’s smile. I didn’t smile. The crowds left roses that the cars drove over. I didn’t want to think I knew anything, but I knew something. My consciousness was telling me I was going to die. I prayed to Shiva and Krishna. College and my future plans all blown up in smoke.

I was trying to be present when I prayed. Grasping every straw of clarity. My head got to me. I killed a man next to me. I didn’t spend much time on it. I wasn’t as developed as a boy should be, at my age. Consciousness wasn’t fully developed.

A leaf blew by that reminded me of a girl I met in the city. What made it worse was my mom cried tears of sadness.

“Ain’t nothin gonna hold me down,” I said to Armando in the car.

“Everybody love you when you’re ten feet under ground.”

The brain wasn’t working. The girlfriend was on my arm. Before porn, we used to go out. I didn’t want to distance myself from her.

“This was a fantasy land we lived in.” I said. “It doesn’t have to be like this.”

My friend, Armando, laughed. “How can you laugh at a times like this?” I said.

My legs gave out from under me.

An enemy soldier was over me.

Armando laughed and pointed. ‘“We should’ve gotten that,” at a balloon of girls in bikinis.

She wasn’t in the crowd luckily. I had to protect her. There was no anxiety in the crowd. I needed my girlfriend with me to live there. I was tired of being scared. Putting the pieces together, I couldn’t find out if I was there. I had to work on my craft. I was a writer.

I had so many finishes to make, so many chapters to make. I had to be self-sufficient. I was tired of distractions. And, my girlfriend left. My mind was going a little crazy from the amphetamines. I knew it wasn’t right I was doing this. I knew it was wrong for our future.

I was tired. I rubbed my eyes and smoked a cigarette. I had one outside my apartment before I left too. I could’t see where it would go, all this smoking cigarettes, leaving writing outside my girlfriend. I needed some insight.

The war was over and I needed some insight. The story was going slowly. I was spending a lot of time on it. ‘I’m far from a scrub,’ I thought.

I had time to catch-up with Armando. He made it passed the war. “War stories are so passe`,” I said to Armando.

I hadn’t written in a minute.

“Nice story.” He told me.

My competency was rising, but I couldn’t sell it. A publisher came to my shop one Monday, and he decided he could take my story. He published it, and it got rave reviews. It was in every stall in New York City and every subway car.

I loved it. I loved the life I lived. I loved my girlfriend, and nearly escaped the clutches of war, death, and poverty.

My story carried with me for the rest of my life.

I was happy.