Tracks

I didn't mean to drag you down, it’s just that I show love by suffering at people. That’s how I express myself. I learned to find a freedom in it, through it, and I wasn’t so much trying to pull you down as pull you with me. Where to, I don’t know; I think the point was not knowing.

Do you remember that time we followed the old railroad tracks in winter to that abandoned sugar-shack sat still since about 1955, frozen in time, unchanged even though so many springs passed since and the sap flowed fresh and rich and golden each time? Who decided to stop harvesting it? Who just gave up one day and said fuck it? Decided to stay home? They didn’t come back to collect anything off the walls. They just left it all as it was.

Only a few vagrants had enjoyed it since, as evinced by some half-crushed Pepsi cans and other modern rubbish. And us, we enjoyed it, before the barking of large dogs sounded in the distance, but definitely getting closer. I imagined them, hulking and black against the snow, barreling down upon us as we spent those last surreal days together in late February.

And then, you boarded the plane for China. Where else could you go?