State Lines

This country feels industrious when you truck through it burning forty pounds of coal at every state line. The brutal bumping that the tracks force on you helps to forget that people don't build them anymore. It helps you wonder; helps your mind stroll down unknown paths and peek around dark corners. The scotch and rocks remind you that, even then, people needed something to forget their world, their country, while they pounded spikes through solid blocks of steel and wood. The scotch is only scotch though, it'll never wipe your head clean of all the things you've attached your name to. An old friend will sit and pass the time with you, forgetting that they, too, are old and still curious. But your friend will not understand the drinks you take because he has yet to see the mountainside; the winding miles of rock and sand that lead you back to where you may have come from, or farther away than you have ever been. 

Industry. Industry is what gave us this. Sweat and iron raging against broken wood and a fresh slice of earth while the sun rips holes through the fields of dead grass and wasted sand. 'Course, that was then. So you brought your scotch, and your friend has passed, and the rocks still float to the top. I don't know if the mountains wind anymore, but this necktie sure looks nice.