Hell

I’ve lived in the same city all my life. I’ve traveled the same cracked streets, past the same failing businesses that continue to exist.



This place is driving me crazy. It could be because I’ve never really had the opportunity to get out and the monotony is stifling. Maybe I just can’t appreciate it until I’m eighteen and there’s something to do at night instead of just sitting around at a coffee house or a dirty river. Cracked streets are getting too boring, I need something more. Cobblestone, perhaps. Or fresh blacktop, smoothed over and before the sun bleaches it gray. Maybe just the interstate, jump on I-10 and drive until I can’t drive any further.



Not that it’s really a terrible city. The river is dirty, and there are way too many people, but the skyline is awesome at night and there’s always something, somewhere, to do. Tall buildings cast shadows over the ghetto and makes it seem a little bit cleaner, a little bit more surreal.



I like to imagine that I’m going somewhere far away. Even when I was little I would sit in a refrigerator box and pretend to drive, a boat or an airplane or a car, just going forever and not looking back, leaving Jacksonhell in the dust. I’d travel to distant, exciting places and live there until I got bored again, dancing along the brick streets of Philadelphia or hanging out in Boston subway, and then leave. Now, my imagination is not as sharp as it used to be, and for now, all I can do is to try to find my way out through writing. Even that seems to be diminishing; I’m afraid that if I’m not out of here soon I’ll have been sucked in completely and I won’t even want to leave anymore.



I’ll sit on the front porch of the house I’ve lived in all my life, in the same city I’ve lived in all my life, and watch the world slow down and the wind stop blowing around me so that I won’t get caught up in the excitement and have my restless urge to leave again.



No, I could never do that. I can't let this place break my spirit, if that's what's got to happen then there's no point to live. This place- It’s too big, too fucking impersonal and indifferent. People have drowned in the muddy river, not from the water but from the city itself. I can’t let that happen to me. The wind will begin to blow and I’ll be gone.