Note: This is actually quite old, from December I believe, but I'm publishing it here, now, because I didn't publish it then.

So I guess it's fitting that on the evening after THAT evening, the sunset painting itself to darkness in the heavens above is the most dazzling 360 degree spectacle of purples, blues, oranges and yellows--sliding toward red--that these little eyeballs have seen in a long, long time.

Could be the jet lag or the reverse culture shock--choose whatever jargon you want to describe my awe--but I don't think so. This has little to do with long distance international travel. It's something else.

I've said a lot of ridiculous things in my life, but nothing so ridiculous as, "The world is beautiful today for a reason, for me. To tell me something." Since I've never said anything so foolish and ignorant as that before, I'm allowed to say it now; I'm using my one freebie--the one time I can say something so out of control and preposterous that I mean it: I think I'm in love.

You don't throw shit like that around--I know--but what am I supposed to say? I know what lust feels like. This isn't that. Perhaps at first, but what now, what the fuck now? Your life isn't supposed to get fucked up like this. Your life is supposed to stick to that stupid plan you made years ago, and adhere to the fucking track like a train headed downtown.

That never happens, of course.

But my train has fallen so fucking far off the tracks right now that discerning even a slightly appropriate course of action is impossible. What has happened to me? Have I finally grown up?

Am I the weary traveller in that foreign yet oh so local coffee shop writing about his love, his loss and the great pains movement throughout the world has brought him? Am I that guy now? ...Here in the corner, scribbling about nothing and everything. That goddamned beautiful sunset, like her eyes, that goddamned song, incessantly repeating in my mind. This goddamned life, designed to confound me, fuck with me, absolutely torment me to no end, so much so that my mouth is now bleeding slightly because I've been gritting my teeth so hard that I've unwittingly punctured some flesh.

I guess a slow loss of blood wouldn't be a bad way to go. What else are you really supposed to do in this circumstance?

Wait for karma to get you back? Wait for the plane to fly off, 6,000 miles from home; and from...

Is this where I'm supposed to throw my plane ticket in the trash--at the last possible moment of course--and come running back, ricocheting off the terminal walls like the tangled mess of nerves I am?

Or is this where I fly off into that goddamned beautiful sunset and never look back?

Flights across the pacific are painful because I'm always leaving those I love behind. What shore is she on this time, and are her eyes still blue?

I probably deserve to burn in hell, if such a place exists. First, for what I've done; Second, for what I didn't do; and Third, for all the people I've hurt as badly as my heart hurts today.