Riding
It's starting to peel at the edges, flapping in the winds the broken up seams are starting to show themselves. The hack-job cross stitching isn't holding it in place any more and the nylon string that's been used is brittle and hard now. It's snapping from the strain and I keep on pushing it; I wanna feel it peel back so I can see beyond it, I don't want to destroy it - I need to go beyond it.
It's not the wound on my leg, that's all scars now. It's not the scabs on my knuckles, they've got no stitches. It's not the frayed pockets of these jeans, I never bothered fixing them in the first place.
It's... something I can't explain. I wanna say it's an escape from reality, but it's the exact opposite.
Like pornography where you hate what you're seeing but you're being aroused by the vulgar imagery, this is bypassing all the philosophies and morals and pierces right into the precognitive. It goes deeper than the rotten core of my mind - that fuckhouse of nicotine tar, whiskey and truck stop fry sludge - right into the juicy pink centre. Like a steak knife into a charred tenderloin. So now you know where it hits me in the mind, the primitive lizard mind that doesn't bother moralizing and tells my body to do what feels good.
Maggot therapy for my soul at light speed, it is the debridement of my mind and the longer I can get there - the longer I stay there - in that state of chaotic serenity the better I come out. Getting to that place is a walk down the edge of an obsidian blade, you balance and you walk soft because if you push too hard - push too stupid, stupid - you'll end up cutting yourself in half in your haste.
Speed.
Pretty vulgar and I'm wishing I could couch it in some fancier terminology to deny the truth of the simplicity and crudeness of it. I want it to be uncommon, something that only I've got and I'm not about to share it. That's not true though, it's just physics and mechanics in action. I'm just a mortal man straddling over two hundred kilograms of precision manufactured metal, plastic and computer parts - between my legs sits an engine that's turning at over ten thousand revolutions a minute when I shift up.
That's the method... and it's stupid, no doubt about it. The motorcycle is a machine that has demanded more human sacrifices than any Mayan god, no amount of worship will placate the thirst for blood because the machine isn't sentient - it doesn't care if I live or die. So the focus is on the person on top of the machine; at these speeds my organ donorism won't even be a factor; if I kiss the asphalt I'll be a red line down the road along with the double yellow. Weren't not talking about a little bit of road rash here, a bit of hell for your leathers, this is decapitation, dismemberment, permanent brain damage, shattered bones and fatality.
This doesn't make me cool, heroic or brave, it doesn't make my dick bigger and it doesn't make my balls swell with pride. If going fast does any of that for you; well then you're more a fucking idiot than I am. Congrats on carrying on the fine traditions of terminal squidism.
So...
The sun is screaming in my face and I'm laughing, the tinted visor is doing fuck all and I can barely see the bend that's coming. Just a gentle curve but at these speeds you might as well be a hairpin in my mind, you come and go so fast. The fairings dropped off, the meat flew off my bones.
I forgot to put the plugs in my ears - I need to buy new ones - it's not the four cylinders of Japanese fury that are howling at their torment underneath me as I straddle it harder that's making my ears kill. The wind whipping over my helmet at these speeds is the culprit. It's worse than the noise at the loudest concerts I've been to and I can't even hear it, I know it's painful but...
Twenty seconds have passed since I set off. I smacked my visor down and I took a glance so I wouldn't become a hood ornament before turning my sights towards the sun. First, second, third, fourth, fifth and now... now sixth gear. Fingers push the clutch down, foot hits the upshift and then I let the clutch out. Three hundred kilometres an hour and it's twenty seconds since I had foot on the ground.
In the middle of the chaos of speed I'm finding my calm. The actions of my limbs are from muscle memory and I barely recognize that my body has hunkered down against the black tank of petrol, as the world blurs past me I look farther and farther ahead for danger. My mind is focused to a deadly point - my survival depends on my mind more than my body at this moment, how fast I recognize the changes and how I react to them. Only momentarily I'm struck by the fragile reality of my mortality before it's stripped away. An asphalt treadmill underneath the tyres and the endless out of focus panorama of trees on both sides make this straight seem as endless as the last.
When I'm on this bike I am exposed, I'm naked and vulnerable to the harshness and the beauty of the world around me - the connection with all this imagery going by too fast for my brain process - and so I become part of it. This... this is the calmness and the serenity I find in the middle of a seemingly mad and immature love for speed.
All the things that isolate me from the world - the daily worries, chores and responsibilities - every appointment and bit of jaded outlook has to be lost. I can't run the world around me through the filters in my mind because if I slow the processing down it'll kill me, so I have to accept the raw data and I can't let myself stew in a bath of sensory deprivation and bias concocted by my own mind. I have to focus and so... so my mind is peeled back, the seams begin to show and the charred exterior is scraped away to expose the innocent pinkness beneath.
Not for the love of ego or self, but for the love of the world around me. This isn't an escape from reality, it's a pure connection with it.
It's not the wound on my leg, that's all scars now. It's not the scabs on my knuckles, they've got no stitches. It's not the frayed pockets of these jeans, I never bothered fixing them in the first place.
It's... something I can't explain. I wanna say it's an escape from reality, but it's the exact opposite.
Like pornography where you hate what you're seeing but you're being aroused by the vulgar imagery, this is bypassing all the philosophies and morals and pierces right into the precognitive. It goes deeper than the rotten core of my mind - that fuckhouse of nicotine tar, whiskey and truck stop fry sludge - right into the juicy pink centre. Like a steak knife into a charred tenderloin. So now you know where it hits me in the mind, the primitive lizard mind that doesn't bother moralizing and tells my body to do what feels good.
Maggot therapy for my soul at light speed, it is the debridement of my mind and the longer I can get there - the longer I stay there - in that state of chaotic serenity the better I come out. Getting to that place is a walk down the edge of an obsidian blade, you balance and you walk soft because if you push too hard - push too stupid, stupid - you'll end up cutting yourself in half in your haste.
Speed.
Pretty vulgar and I'm wishing I could couch it in some fancier terminology to deny the truth of the simplicity and crudeness of it. I want it to be uncommon, something that only I've got and I'm not about to share it. That's not true though, it's just physics and mechanics in action. I'm just a mortal man straddling over two hundred kilograms of precision manufactured metal, plastic and computer parts - between my legs sits an engine that's turning at over ten thousand revolutions a minute when I shift up.
That's the method... and it's stupid, no doubt about it. The motorcycle is a machine that has demanded more human sacrifices than any Mayan god, no amount of worship will placate the thirst for blood because the machine isn't sentient - it doesn't care if I live or die. So the focus is on the person on top of the machine; at these speeds my organ donorism won't even be a factor; if I kiss the asphalt I'll be a red line down the road along with the double yellow. Weren't not talking about a little bit of road rash here, a bit of hell for your leathers, this is decapitation, dismemberment, permanent brain damage, shattered bones and fatality.
This doesn't make me cool, heroic or brave, it doesn't make my dick bigger and it doesn't make my balls swell with pride. If going fast does any of that for you; well then you're more a fucking idiot than I am. Congrats on carrying on the fine traditions of terminal squidism.
So...
The sun is screaming in my face and I'm laughing, the tinted visor is doing fuck all and I can barely see the bend that's coming. Just a gentle curve but at these speeds you might as well be a hairpin in my mind, you come and go so fast. The fairings dropped off, the meat flew off my bones.
I forgot to put the plugs in my ears - I need to buy new ones - it's not the four cylinders of Japanese fury that are howling at their torment underneath me as I straddle it harder that's making my ears kill. The wind whipping over my helmet at these speeds is the culprit. It's worse than the noise at the loudest concerts I've been to and I can't even hear it, I know it's painful but...
Twenty seconds have passed since I set off. I smacked my visor down and I took a glance so I wouldn't become a hood ornament before turning my sights towards the sun. First, second, third, fourth, fifth and now... now sixth gear. Fingers push the clutch down, foot hits the upshift and then I let the clutch out. Three hundred kilometres an hour and it's twenty seconds since I had foot on the ground.
In the middle of the chaos of speed I'm finding my calm. The actions of my limbs are from muscle memory and I barely recognize that my body has hunkered down against the black tank of petrol, as the world blurs past me I look farther and farther ahead for danger. My mind is focused to a deadly point - my survival depends on my mind more than my body at this moment, how fast I recognize the changes and how I react to them. Only momentarily I'm struck by the fragile reality of my mortality before it's stripped away. An asphalt treadmill underneath the tyres and the endless out of focus panorama of trees on both sides make this straight seem as endless as the last.
When I'm on this bike I am exposed, I'm naked and vulnerable to the harshness and the beauty of the world around me - the connection with all this imagery going by too fast for my brain process - and so I become part of it. This... this is the calmness and the serenity I find in the middle of a seemingly mad and immature love for speed.
All the things that isolate me from the world - the daily worries, chores and responsibilities - every appointment and bit of jaded outlook has to be lost. I can't run the world around me through the filters in my mind because if I slow the processing down it'll kill me, so I have to accept the raw data and I can't let myself stew in a bath of sensory deprivation and bias concocted by my own mind. I have to focus and so... so my mind is peeled back, the seams begin to show and the charred exterior is scraped away to expose the innocent pinkness beneath.
Not for the love of ego or self, but for the love of the world around me. This isn't an escape from reality, it's a pure connection with it.