16. Waiting on a Train

Are we waiting on a train bound for nowhere?

Michigan Central Station then and now.

This place has grown so empty, so cold.  We walk among the prairies and ruins that exist in the fourth world.These bustling lobbies are desolate.  The tracks here are rusted.  We are a disposable people, the outcasts of a society waiting on a train.  But, the train doesn't stop here anymore.

Then merged with now in the Michigan Central Station Lobby.
.

The loading platform at Detroit's Michigan Central Station.  

If there is one thing I learned, it's that you can't sit and wait for changes.  We have a natural attraction to the route most traveled.  He's been gone so long, but if Shane could see me now he'd be proud to call me his brother.  

It was those days that Shane taught me to snowboard as a child.  I kept trying to give up, falling, cold and sore.  He told me to get up, no brother of his was going to be a quitter.  I didn't quit, and that feeling of overcoming yourself was the greatest lesson I ever learned.  He's not around anymore, but he helped ignite a fire that just seems stronger than most.

A train passes Downtown Detroit.

Midnight Train to Freedom

Gothic girl walking the Detroit cornfields, with the Fisher
Building visible in the background.

Black gown available for
purchase here.

The urge to walk with you on those old rusty tracks is intense and undeniable.  Then it hits me like a train; do you really love me back, or are you leading me astray?  

Through addiction and tricks done by Death, we're still here.  With my ego bruised, and heart broken, I can't lie to myself.  I am addicted to you, more so than the others. 

I know I said I loved you, but only if I am right about myself.  I'm selfish.  All I want, is for me, even you.  Then one day I am alone, you left, and I realized I had taken our love for granted.  I wonder why I am alone, and would do anything to get you back... until you're back.  That cycle is eternal, a pursuit of happiness on a treadmill.

They say we aren't in control of our own lives, but they're wrong.  Forget that, I'm standing up.  Apparently we are the only ones who can know for sure, but one thing's for sure, I am done waiting on this midnight train.

So, beyond the crumbling facades on the abandoned buildings and the desolate forgotten urban prairies, if at midnight you are in that station, and you hear that steam whistle blow over the clickity-clack of wheels down that track, please don't forget about me. I just can't wait any longer.  I am done waiting on that midnight train.  I am done waiting for The Midnight Train to freedom.