tired. in pain. i feel like jesus.

i want to: sleep, heal, play guitar, finish this, get away, move on, move out, see somebody, and talk to somebody else... but none of this is important.

earlier tonight i was stopped at a stoplight. light turns green. i ease onto the pedal aware that my music is loud and that if i take off from the line i will look like a punk. cant do both. easy off the line i see ahead an old shitbox van quickly round the corner from the left into my lane. nothing to touch the brake about, it is a large intersection, but obvious he ran the red. asshole, i think, dirty bastard. people pull shit like this all the time. i flip him off over my steering wheel. not because i want to piss him off but because i know nobody will see me. he moves slowly in my lane but also with a wheel in the other lane shifting back and forth slowly as if confused. a yellow sign on the back of the luggage annex on the van says "caution: children" and below it on the door "slow watch for children". strange he should take a corner that quickly. i look through the dirty rear windows at something moving in the back. looks like a piece of duct tape flapping about. there is another piece hanging under the muffler. the entire van is a shitbox, is both apathetic and provoking, not sad. i check blind spot to the right and hit the pedal into the middle lane. it is an icecream truck, an old one. i want to pass him but the speedo reads fifty two so i wont push it. he is still toeing my lane with the shitbox. nothing to do but uncomfortably take notice in case he is drunk or dull, avoid danger. finally with the next intersection down the hill i plunge the pedal a fraction and pass him. out of habit i glance over to see the driver, to know the face. the driver had pissed me off for thirty seconds now.

it was a girl. just a kid. this was shocking to me. girl looked beat, hanging over the wheel, didnt belong. not in that icecream shitbox. not at nine at night. why was she there? this curiosity took the place of my ill-judged anger. i moved on past her and saw in the rear-view that she (with turn signal) eased into my lane behind me. stopped at the light and she pulled up on the right side. pulled up a bit past my jeep not into the intersection but nosing the white stripe. i couldnt help but take a look. she must be young, early twenties maybe and so sad. tan for a white girl with rasta looking (or maybe just dirty) hair. the picture was nice. the girl was beat and tired or sad and after a couple seconds propped her arm on the window and dash of the shitbox and buried her head in it. her head close to the glass and not looking at the road. i was sad for her. the lanes to the left got their light and turned off left down the highway so i picked up my water and stared for a while. its ok to stare if nobody is watching you. this girl, this kid, i couldnt help feeling she didnt belong there. why was she so depressed? boyfriend left her, hard day at work, family evaporating... it is impossible to know. i wanted to talk to her, to reach out and touch her and know what was the reason for her sadness, her toeing my lane, running the red light, being in the shitbox. this wasnt right. the light turned green and clearly she wasnt watching so i deftly and easily toed my throttle and eased off while keeping an eye on her as she recognized my sound... recognized my sound... and lifted her weary head to follow me. an old japanese small truck had drifted over to my left lane after exiting on from the highway before our light and was doing five under so i waited behind it for her to pass. to get one more look at her sad face. she didnt get on throttle much though, and turned away onto the first side street at the first light. where was she going... home? to kill herself? to see someone... such a sad girl and i wanted her so badly to be there with me instead of alone in the shitbox. with me instead of sad, instead of weary. she disappeared behind the trees behind me and i pulled out into her lane and drove off.