sitting in the first train car

I’m sitting at the front of the train with the conductor and all the seats are facing me as we pass forgotten towns and dried fields. The lady next to me schedules another meeting and the man across the walkway plays some alien phone game and ahead of me I see half-awake faces of people in various stages of slumber. And I’m thinking of one of the movies I saw last night. You can’t wake up if you don’t fall asleep. Unsettling. And it’s easy for me to look around and affirm this statement’s truth, but I can’t ignore the hands typing this. I’m also sitting here, headphones in, Kerouac’s book open and my mind drifting and considering the differences between what being On the Road meant then and what it means now on this $30 Amtrak. ///
but there’s always some kind of nostalgia for a past mode of living, while some essential things have improved, others have been chewed by the mouth of consumerism and in its jaws there’s some that are constantly looking around for a place where you don’t need to buy to exist or to stake some sense of identity ///

maybe we just need to rest for a bit and then we can awaken to stop living in fractions