How to Waste Your Life in Clearwater, Florida

This one time in Clearwater

The air will always be filled with something. Your body too sore or
tired. Your father too drunk. Your wife too cold. You will always have
some excuse not to live your life.

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Don’t
laugh, but none of this is permanent. I know you don’t believe me,
because you never do about these things, but I have my passport now
&he sent me an Atlas in the mail. We can do whatever we want. There
is nothing tying us down. I am not threatning you, I am threatning
myself. Don’t laugh, but I’ve been sleeping in other languages. Jackson
Davis has to drive ten hours under the wrong circumstances so I burn a
light blue candle. A woman told me years ago that’s what you do for
safe driving. I use it instead of a nightlite, I burn the whole house
down. Don’t laugh, but I have all these dreams about everyone
dissolving. I line them up in alphabetical order and watch them drown.
By last name first. Please fill these forms out- last name, then first.
Then tell me how it is connected, how it goes back into your family
tree. Tell me about the people who crossed boats for you to be here,
tell me what it felt like when they died or starved or desecrated- tell
me what it felt like for them, and tell me that they did it for you.
Because they did do it for you, so you could be the American Dream, so
you could be page fifty-six of that book, so you could be the son of
God and The Patron Saint of Seventy Five Words Per Minute. With your
last name and your great smile. Don’t laugh, but my last name means the
Part in your in Italian. I am half Sicilian- everyone will tell you,
unless they are American, and then they wont distinquish the difference
between Boots and Islands. They too will capitalize all the wrong words
and exploit me for all the wrong moments of my life. They have pictures
to prove it, so I cant deny any of it. Don’t laugh, but my whole life
has been documented very well. From start to finish there are
monologues sans-metaphors, videos of dancing/confessions, photo albums
over spilling with pictures- and I was always told to write. For
sixteen years I have been told to write. Like you were told to make
your bed. That is why I do not make my bed, that is why I hate writing.
The Baby Boomers had babies of their own, and they are all starting to
grow up believing their lives are important enough for everyone to
know. When we look in the mirror the whole goddamn thing has always
been about us, I will never know what it felt like for you, but that is
what it felt like for me.

Don’t laugh, but I believe in ghosts,
and I believe in aliens, and my whole life I’ve been writing for one
person. For one recurring character. Don’t laugh, but my whole life
I’ve been using the same words wrong- not the same wrong words. Don’t
laugh, but when people are about to do really reckless things with
their life, I am the person they call. I recieve e-mails and voice
mails with boys telling me they are moving to the west coast, with
girls telling me they are joining the army, with everyone saying they
are fed up with their life and they are ready to do something drastic,
I am the one they tell. I am not sure what they expect me to say,
besides the fact that I’ll always be supportive. It doesnt matter
really anyway, in the end everyone will try to justify that all my
decisions were just like theirs, that all my chances were the same as
yours, but you see they werent. Don’t laugh, but they weren’t at all.

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