TrainWrite

angels with rusty steel wings

by Jessie Lynn

A ghost hiss of train smoke – angel breath; the rustle of a rucksack – invisible, vestigial wings; the clank and thunder of steel on steel, freight on track – calloused fingers scraping against guitar strings.  And all the lonely lonely in this land, searching with their big empty hearts, hearts big and empty as the Grand Canyon, searching searching for that fairytale place glimpsed once, so long ago. Behind the sound of the train blasting down the tracks, the train whistle blows – woo-woo-whooo-eeeer-woo – I hear: We’re, all of us, fallen.  We’re all lookin for that love we lost, that blood we lost, that home we lost somewhere along the way.  Behind the crunch of heavy steel over half-rotten tracks – ssshh-kkccchh – what I hear is the rustle of a rucksack in a dark corner, the hushed flare of a match, the slight ruffling of unseen, possible wings.  In the scent of trainsmoke, oily, sulphurous, thick, I smell a man’s breath on the nape of my neck, the only warm thing in cold autumn dawns of the middlewest.  And in the thrill of the heat, the grit in my face, the knowledge that if I stepped a foot to the right I’d be obliterated, I feel lean, fierce arms around me, and see eyes looking into mine, eyes as deeply purple-black as the sky at midnight in summer.

Everything beautiful is deadly.  Every angel is terrible.

—-

Jessie Lynn (Rust Belt Jessie) is the former Safety Pin Girl, now more of an Accordion n’ Railroad Girl. She spends too much time in diners, writes about road trips, and sometimes pretends she lives in a Tom Waits song. She has run away with the circus six times or so, and has been known by about twenty different pen names/stage names. Her main blog is here, her original writing/music/art blog is here.

Notes

  1. rustbeltwhiskey-deactivated2012 submitted this to trainwrite
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