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Show 196 Maybe not contempt, exactly-more mixed feelings, an expression I like for its cauldron imagery and the acidic result I imagine. The intertwinement of love and hate has been well documented, but I also like to think about minor feelings stirred together-admiration poured in with annoyance with rage with attraction with nausea and stirred. My mother said: "You just have to say you don't want to go back. You're still young. You don't have to be stuck on that track." For a while I thought I could make a life hopping trains. The person who introduced that romance to me drowned in a cement cave. His name was Blake. In some ways the job was an homage to him. As he liked to paint train cars, it would have been a very poor homage on my part if my cleaning duties were to use the gasoline to clean graffiti from the cars, as I had been taught on the first day. Thankfully, no one seemed interested in pursuing that further. The graffiti was accepted as part of the trains just as the Union Pacific logo was. Since Blake died the only trains I'd ridden were the public transit TRAX cars in Salt Lake City. I rode them early in the morning on the way to school and work. Sometimes after school I would ride the trains as far as they would go, and then ride them all the way back. I wanted to leave my anger behind on those seats and distract my eyes with graffiti. Step off and walk around a little lighter for a while. |