New Mexico is a shithole. For a time the sunsets dissuaded me.
All of us in all of our glorious mental illness, and unhappiness, and pure loneliness stand and watch the sky turn pink and orange and reflect off mountainous clouds. The sky is big - very big. This is important.
Go west young man, and blow your brains out.
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I need buildings and mountains to hold in my insides. We slip away in this terrain. The sky is so damn big.
We stepped into Allsup’s. Lotaburger. Giant. We drove up to Sonic. Burrito Spot. We stepped into Trader Joes. Whole Foods. Smith’s. Walgreens. We stepped into a desert. We stepped into sunlight.
And two aging hard-timed Mexicans stood in front of the door. I smiled weakly.
“Would you like to buy some chile?”
Bags of earthtone powders sat on top of a trash can. The sun was going down. The glow from inside was attracting alcoholism in beat down 80s BMWs. That was the time.
“No thanks man, I’m alright.”
I sat outside and waited for my coworker to buy beer. I stood a distance from their lonely operation, but the story was coming. Today it moved fast.
“Hey, where are you from?”
“California originally.”
“I want to go to California. I’ve been in Santa Fe for forty years.”
“Yeah? Where are you from?”
“Santa Fe.”
Shit.
This sixty year old man was claiming forty and his deep brown wrinkled face asked me to let him tell me all about those twenty years that don’t exist. There’s twenty years standing in front of the 24- hour Walgreens and selling chile powder in Ziploc bags. I looked down.
Welcome to the Land of Entrapment...