a train ride.

sometimes i like to look through my notebook of things i've written. this story is from a few weeks ago, and i can remember wanting to take a train ride that day.

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For as long as I can remember, the train has come through town in the first of April, right before the summer heat settles in. I have memories of watching the cabs roll by as the train would slow to a stop and seeing the impatient passengers quickly boarding to find a place to sit, window seats being taken first. I've never known where that train was heading, but it's always been something I've wondered about, a subconscious thought always in the back of mind. So this year is my time. I awoke on that morning in the first of April to a foggy sunrise and enough of a chill in the outside air to wear my favorite sweater. Soon enough I was at the train station, clutching my train ticket in one hand and a backpack carelessly slung over my right shoulder. Not that I had much to pack, mind you. Simply a pen and book to document what a saw, a picture of home (so I wouldn't forget), and all the money that I found tucked under my mattress. Within a few minutes, the train rolled into view, its whistle louder than ever and my heart thumping in time to the rhythm of the wheels. When all of the train finally slowed to a stop, I scrambled into the nearest cab to the window seat, left side in the middle. After all the passengers got settled, the train lurched forward and my stomach began to churn, faster and faster, as if trying to match the time of the rapidly turning wheels beneath me. We were off; headed somewhere I've never been but always have longed to go. And maybe if we travel long enough, I will end up back home, where I left my heart. xx

listen. || feel. || hope. || love. || live.