IN RESPONSE TO OBLIVION - STARS AND BOULEVARDS

Wait dear, a white horse is walking down my street here, / Your words are creeping at my feet / I fear, sunrise will come too soon and you'll disappear / Into the haze of this city and go south...

       "Just stay, please." She stares at me and I know she will go. I can beg and beg and beg, but I can't make her stay. I know I shouldn't want to, but I have to try. Everything that I've done, should make me want to push her out and never let her look at me again. But everything she is  makes me want her to stay.


       "Daniel..." She sighs and looks at her shoes then back up at me. "I can't stay with you forever. There are just things that - well things that are hard for me to ignore. And if you think they-" she waives her arm toward the end of the suburban street- "will let me even attempt to forget you have deluded yourself. It's not that I don't love you or want you, I do, but I don't want to live a life of lies even if it is with you." 

       "Claire... I just need you to listen." Maybe I can at least get her to listen to me for once. Maybe she still - I don't know, I just need her here with me. Is that really so bad? 

       "You have one night. Then I'm gone."

Look out, they're coming after us with big guns, / They're only gonna tell you all the bad things I've done / Even if they words they say aren't true they've won, / Now I'm left here dying in the sun

       Barely a half hour after I get her to stay, her cell phone starts to ring. It keeps ringing and ringing. Eventually she answers it and just listens while staring intently at me. When she hangs up she says, "You wanted to me to listen.... so talk." 

       I inhale deeply. I hold it for a few seconds before I exhale. "I didn't think when I met you that I would love you. I didn't think that you would make me a better person." She scoffs. I concede, "Okay, maybe I'm not better and maybe I haven't changed, but I want to for your sake."

       "Really, Daniel? Because from where I'm sitting it's like all you do is lie and it doesn't look like you want to change at all." I feel the tears stinging my eyes. Not because I'm hurt by her words, but because they are true. All I know how to do is lie and steal.

       What can I tell her to convince her there is more to me than cheating people out of money? There isn't much I can say, I am a professional bank robber. I find out I can teleport and what do I do? Do I save the world like all the guys from movies and comic books? No, I rob banks. Do I at least pull a Robin Hood and give it to the poor? No, I am the poor. Or at least I was. "I don't know how to say how sorry I am."
       She shakes her head and looks down. When she looks beck up at me there are tears in her eyes. "This isn't enough anymore. I can't keep living off 'i'm sorry'." She looks at her phone again.

       "Who was on the phone Claire?" I'm scared of her answer.

       "It was your brother. He says one of the guards at the bank were nearly killed by someone who was after you. They thought it was an inside job." The tears are streaming down her cheeks now. 

       I tightened my jaw and stared at her. She has no idea. "You know my brother isn't exactly Mr. Honesty when it comes to me. He has no shred of loyalty, he has never looked out for me. He has always set me up." She looks at me tears still streaming. She looks at her phone again.  I let out a short, humorless, laugh, "It doesn't matter though, does it? It doesn't matter what I say or do, you've already made up your mind based on someone who has done nothing but lie to you." I ball my hand into a fist then release it. I feel the tension constricting my chest. I try to hold back angry tears. I walk to her until we are less than two inches apart. "I have done a lot of things, but I never lied to you. I have lied to everyone except for you because I thought that you might realize that and trust me, but I guess that wasn't enough either." 

       She touches my shoulder. I jerk it away not allowing her calm me down. "Good bye Daniel."

Oh...seems like I'm always on my own, / Seems like I'm never coming home / Seems like I'm always on my own... / All the stars and boulevards aren't close enough for you...

       I go to my truck and begin to drive. I drive too fast and too recklessly. I don't stop until I see the sunrise. I find a nice town with a crappy motel and crash there. I just need to be away. I need to be alone. Maybe that should have been my pan all along. Maybe I'm better on my own. I couldn't go home now. Every time I thought about home all I get was a mental picture or her. It is normal for me to be alone. It is how I should have been from the beginning.

       Then a picture fills my mind of before. Before I had this power. Before I was a criminal. Before I betrayed her. Before she had the right to hate me. I have a sudden desire to be close to her again... But that wasn't going to happen.

Late nights, won't do me justice / Cause when I drink...I just get so damn depressed, / And its not like, I ain't trying to get over you. / It's just hard to look at all the seasons, pass me over too...

       It's late and I know that I'm wrong. I know I shouldn't default to destructive behavior, but what do you expect from a criminal? I know that drinking won't do anything to numb my emotions. I know that the more I drink, the more depressed I get. I know that can't keep doing this to myself. But I can't just let her go with out some sort of right of passage. 

       As hard as I am trying to let it go and move on with my life I can't get her out of my head. Time passes so slowly I sometimes think it's not passing at all, but before I know it the month has slipped away. I'm still in the same crappy motel. This is insane.

Seems like I'm never coming home / Seems like I'm always on my own...

       It's a Thursday when I finally pack my things into my truck. I'm trying not to let this all be in vane. I though it before, but now I know for sure, I am never going to be able to go back there or I will be the same exact person I was before. I will go with the intention of proving myself to her, but it will end with me falling back into old habits. I am on my own. But this time things have to be different.

One last phone call from you, it wouldn't hurt much, / Just like to hear your voice and pretend to touch, / Any inch of you that hasn't said it all or read it all or sung / My life away.

       I use what is probably the last payphone in America because I am the last person in the world with out a cell phone. I dial her number. When I hear her pick up I hang up, losing my nerve. I had done this seven times already. 

       the next night I do call her again. But this time before I can hang up she says, "Daniel? If this is you this has to end. I just don't think that I can keep living like this; waiting for your phone call only to have you hang up the second I answer, then feeling guilty for wanting to talk to you so bad. I just want - well I don't know what I want, but it's not this." I can hear the sobs catch in her throat. IT would be now that I would hug her and try to tell her it would be okay. But I would never be the one to tell her it's okay again. That's someone else's job now.

       She said it last time, so I decide to say it this time. "Goodbye Claire." I hang the phone up and walk back to my truck. I was right it didn't hurt....much. I drive until I see the ocean and smell salt.