Tuesday, July 28, 2009

what if

i did what i want to do right now. what if i took off in a car full of nothing but good music and cheap cigarettes. what if i took a map, but never looked at it. what if i stopped at truck stops and made small talk with waiters and truck driving men. what if i fell asleep in the back seat with no one else around. what if i could let myself be carefree. i've had enough of trying so damn hard. i want to get on the highway with no clear plan. i want to drive to the ocean and go skinny dipping without blinking an eye. what if i did. what if i stopped at every bar and flirted with the cowboys in front of their girlfriends. what if i finally wrote music for all the songs in my head. what if i drank good wine in vineyards and got asked to dance. i want to climb mountains and sleep next to streams. i want to ride a wave again. when did i stop fully living. what if i stopped stalling. i want skylines and sunshine. i want to actually cry without making myself stop or worrying about how red my face gets. i want to sing until i run out of words and keep my hand out the window through every state. what if i never let anything pass me by ever again. what if i loved fully and without out fear. what if i worked an honest day again. like that summer on the farm. got up with the sun and went to sleep to the sound of crickets and porch swings. what if i picked up a paint brush again. what if i danced in every rain storm and laughed at the lightning. i think i'll be finished with this halfway living thing now. i think i'll drop the what ifs off the front of every one of these sentences. no matter how long it takes. what if. i want to wake up every morning with a purpose. with a clear head and clean lungs. i want to live out every day so that by the end of it my muscles ache and my mind is eager for dreaming. i'm going to. i will. if i don't i think i'll die here. young. and lonely. and half the woman i know i could be.

1 comment:

dogimo said...

I know this is probably a bit late - you're probably halfway to wherever you're headed by now! But if not, if you haven't left yet, well hell young'un. Get to it! Do it, do it all - not necessarily all in one shoot the works binge, you can stretch it out in bits and snatches over a life lived to the full in-between, and savor the feeling of always being halfway to wherever you're headed.

Making plenty of stops along the way!

Except, one thing though. I'd advise against the flirting with the cowboys in front of their girlfriends part, just from a shallow knee-jerk compassion-based standpoint. I mean, just picture if you were a cowboy's girlfriend, and along comes a small-talkin', back-seat-sleepin', carefree, so-hard-tryin', ocean-driven skinny-dippin' girl with no clear plan in a car full of good music and cheap cigarrettes, and she jumps out and starts flirting with your cowboy boyfriend right in front of your face?

I suspect at that point, it would "be on."

But what the hell am I saying, trying to check your resolve with my cold counsel?

Don't pay attention to me. Pay attention to the other half the woman you know you could be. She's talking, clear and calm and definite.