guitar riff - self repose uncountable [] - quoc viet - -@_.com @ 1:26am
i didn’t go to work for a month
i didn’t leave my bed for eight days straight
i haven’t hung out with anyone
and if i did, i’d have nothing to say
i didn’t feel angry or depressed
i didn’t feel anything at all
i didn’t want to go to bed
and i didn’t want to stay awake

from the start of this blog it was always about Vietnam, but then again, was it really? change the country, help the people, change the world, feel beauty inside the innards of my bones, learn about my roots, and all that bullshit. but i was just running, from everyone and everything. mostly myself. people don’t like to face their demons… so in college i used to sit and watch everyone around me, finger pick their fuckedupness and be smug in the fact that it wasn’t me.

i see the world in caricatures and now my own is catching up to me. escape in the moment is one of the most exhilirating things ever. grabbing a handful of clothes and boarding a plane, zipping from country to the next - it’s fucking nuts. but when the dust settles and you’re sitting in a quiet room, wondering what it is that you’re doing, you realize you were just running from yourself. i can’t even go back now.. everything seems so superficial, so banal. how do you face 9-to-5 and McDonalds when you see Vietnam under the skin? i can’t even face myself anymore.

on the road my motorbike screams murder, murder, murder and i push it with all i’ve got left in me. the needle shakes violently close to 80km/hr, the engine shakes violently, my whole fucking being is shaking violently because that’s the only way i can get my thoughts into alignment. i pass men of all shapes and sizes with attractive young women sitting on the back, prostitutes in dresses and revealing clothing and christ, they all look so normal. there are the dirt peddlers, brown dusty jackets flapping lightly with their dusty caps and commodities strapped to the back. i know all of you.

i go by the old aqueduct, where i used to sit and watch bits of trees and trash troll by. memory, how thick you are and what a noise you make when you return. i pull onto the sidewalk running the length of this pseudo river and prop up my motorbike. down to my right is a couple hidden beneath a tree, to my left an arching bridge to connect the two banks. i sit on my motorbike and stare at the black sludge. the smell of raw sewage. two dank rats appear from under a block of packing foam, the kind used to hold a stereo within a cardboard box. they rummage around the trash along the sloping banks, and then disappear. a ways out in front of me there are some squatter shacks. half of the shacks rest on part of the bank and upon other houses, the other half hanging over water and held in place with long wooden poles. the poles disappear into the water yet seemingly connect back in the reflection. different shades of brown and grey, sheets of metal in various stages of rust, overlap each other on the sides of these shacks. they are the walls in themselves, discarded metal that wouldn’t even be considered usable scrap in the US. the pale street lights fade at this part, where the shacks begin along a smaller connecting waterway. the makeshift homes are abodes to squatters and the absolute lower class. it looks like a dirty floating island.

someone is sweeping the front of their store, behind me. swish swish goes feathery soft like my imagined past. there is a strange smell to this place. at this point i fear almost nothing, not even death.
Comments (0)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 at 1:49 pm and is filed under Toi la Nguoi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.