An Odyssey By Rail

Witnessing America and ourselves as Trump takes office.

Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth.

—Claude McKay

Today marks the day we honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but it is also the day Donald Trump is inaugurated for a second time—a juxtaposition so cruel, it borders on unbearable irony. Millions will grieve, their tears a testament to a deep, shared mourning. But as for me, I choose instead to turn inward, to search my own soul for something more enduring than despair.

Soul searching is a practice I've had to come back to over and over as a Black person in America, to simply get out of bed most days. But I've never had to do so more than in 2024. This past year felt like a fist closing slowly around my existence, each month tightening its grip until I could no longer tell where the ache ended and I began. My personal life was unraveling, a tangled mess of fractured relationships and unmet hopes. My writing, once the lifeblood of my passion, seemed an afterthought to most—even to those who are paid to champion it. Donald Trump was poised to reclaim the presidency, a grim reminder of the nation’s hate-filled chaos and ignorance. The world wasn’t just falling apart; it was imploding, and every crack in its foundation seemed to deepen with each passing day.

And as if me living twelve years with Multiple Sclerosis weren’t enough, I received a diagnosis of heart disease in October that arrived like a final, cruel punctuation mark—another burden to carry, another reminder of the body’s fragility in a world that refuses to offer respite.

The year had left me wondering if the room that is my life would ever stop spinning.

By December, I knew I needed something different, something that would stretch me out across time and space, unknotting the tension of a year that had tried its best to break me. So when I saw an advertisement for Amtrak’s Zephyr train, I knew it had been some sort of fate. A trip that promised over 50 hours of steady, deliberate motion from Chicago to San Francisco.

Trains have always held a kind of poetry for me, even as a boy. They seemed less like machines and more like living things, their tracks stretching like veins across a restless body, their rhythmic hums like a heartbeat you could feel in your feet. I’ve always had an almost ancestral pull to the railroad, as if the sound of a train in the distance echoed something much older than my own fascination.

After a few days in Montreal, and an event in Chicago, I reached the platform at Chicago Union Station to begin my journey. It was colder than I’d anticipated, a chill that seemed to seep through the soles of my shoes and curl into my chest. It was the kind of cold that made you pull your coat tighter, even if you knew it wouldn’t help.

The train loomed ahead, its body gleaming faintly under the platform’s fluorescent lights, a quiet monolith waiting to swallow its passengers and ferry them toward their unspoken hopes. There was no ceremony to boarding, no one calling my name or asking why I’d chosen this train on this particular day. Just the conductor, barely glancing at my ticket before waving me towards the bedroom suites.

Inside, the air was warmer, but there was also a stillness, as if the train were waiting to tell me something. The hallways were narrow, almost claustrophobic, with carpeted walls that bore the faint scent of industrial cleaner. I passed other passengers, their faces quickly averted, their bodies shifting awkwardly to let me by. It struck me rather quickly that I was not only the only Black person heading to the bedroom suites, but also the youngest by at least thirty years.

When I reached my room, I paused for a moment before opening the door. I rested my hand on the handle, feeling the cool metal beneath my palm, and let the moment settle. This was the space where I would spend the next two days—a small, self-contained world with a fold-down bed, a window to parts of America I would likely never travel to otherwise, and enough time to either reflect or unravel.

The room itself was unremarkable, practical in the way most things built for travel are. There was a small sink tucked into the corner, a shower that doubled as a toilet and bench. But it was the window that held my attention, a portal to the world I’d soon be moving through, framed by curtains that I tugged back with a deliberate kind of reverence. I settled into the seat, letting my body and spirit loosen their grip, letting them spill into the room, untangle themselves. A few minutes later, the train shuddered faintly, a tremor that ran through its body and mine, signaling the start of our journey.

I sat for what must have been an hour, maybe more, watching as the city slid away through the window like a half-remembered dream. Eventually, a knock on my door startled me, pulling me from the quiet hypnosis of the window. When I opened it, the attendant—a young Black man, maybe thirty, maybe younger—was standing in the narrow hall, a faint smile lifting the corners of his face. “What’s goin’ on brother? You might want to head to the observation car soon,” he said, his voice filled with a midwestern warmth. “It gets crowded soon, and the view’s about to open up. Better to catch it while it’s still quiet.”

“Appreciate you,” I responded, then dapped him up as if we were old friends, so he knew there would be an ease to our interactions.

Once he walked away, I hesitated, unsure if I wanted to move from the stillness of my small room. But there was something in his tone that seemed to promise I wouldn’t regret it. So, I grabbed my headphones and made my way. The hallway felt tighter than before, the train swaying slightly beneath my feet as I walked to the observation car. The low hum of conversations spilled into the corridor, a gentle crescendo that grew louder as I neared the glass-domed space. When I stepped inside, I immediately understood what the attendant meant. The room stretched open like a cathedral of light, windows arching over the seats, inviting the outside world to pour in.

I found a seat near the middle, sliding into it with the deliberate ease of someone hoping to go unnoticed. Slipping on my headphones, I queued up a playlist of John Coltrane, Ryuichi Sakamoto, some Erik Satie, some Ahmad Jamal. Music that tends to help center me. Outside, the city gave way to the suburbs, and the suburbs gave way to the countryside. The change was so gradual it felt like the train was erasing time rather than space. Fields stretched in quiet defiance of the skyline I had left behind, their muted greens and browns dotted occasionally by a lone barn or the outline of a tractor. Every so often, the train would pass a small town, the kind of place that seemed to exist only in the margins of maps and minds.

As I was settling into the rhythm of photographing the views on my phone, I began to see something else—massive Trump flags. Not one or two, but many, strung high on poles or fastened to the roofs of sagging barns, flapping with defiance and rage. They waved not so much at the sky as at the train itself. These weren’t just political declarations, they were territorial markers, proclamations meant to be read from miles away, shouting into the silence of these otherwise desolate expanses: “This is MAGA country. We dare you to get off that train.”

The sight cut through the quiet reverie I’d built for myself. These were the kinds of places I, as a Black man, would never feel safe traveling to—not by choice and certainly not alone. But no one else in the car seemed the least bit shaken by the flags. Which made me wonder who I was on this train with.

These sorts of moments, as a Black person in America, are as typical as the sunrise, as familiar as a hand-me-down coat that fits but never warms. The threats, the snares, the pits of this country are not accidental; they are deliberate, meticulously aimed, and purpose-built for Black people. Those flags—flapping their defiance at the train, at the sky, at history itself—were not warnings to the white passengers sitting just feet away from me. No, those flags are signals, reminders of the boundaries they are welcomed to cross freely, so long as they toe the line.

But for us—Black, brown, anything outside their narrow imagination of whiteness—there is no line to toe. There is no way to truly fall in line, even if you wanted to, even if you broke yourself into pieces trying. Because the line itself, that invisible tether to acceptance, is a mirage. It shifts, it moves, and it was never meant to include us.

And so, in moments like this, the loneliness settles over you, thick and unrelenting. You tell yourself it is no surprise, that this is what it means to live here, to exist here. But that knowledge doesn’t make it any less daunting.

I stopped taking photos. Instead, I stared out the window, watching as the fields and meadows blurred into one another, thinking not of the landscape but of the election, of the train making its way through America, which feels less like a country and more like a jagged pieces of glass. Or a bullet. Or a noose. Or an abortion clinic being threatened. Or a wildfire. Or a medical bill bankrupting a family.

Suddenly, a man slid into the seat beside me. He was likely in his late-fifties, his hair greyed at the temples in a way that might’ve been distinguished if not for the bandana tied loosely around his neck and the trendy boots he wore—choices that seemed deliberate, almost performative, as if to signal he was someone with a bit of edge still. He didn’t ask permission to sit, just dropped into the seat like someone who assumes their presence is always welcome.

“Beautiful, ain’t it?” he said, nodding toward the window as if we were sharing some unsaid understanding.

He must have spoken to me because he noticed the right side of my headphones was slightly slid off my ear. A precaution to remain aware in my surroundings—I was the only Black person there after all.

I turned to look at him, studying his face, the casual ease with which he occupied the space beside me. There was no malice in his words, no edge in his tone—just an unguarded warmth that seemed at odds with the flags I’d just seen. Ultimately, I reluctantly responded to him.

“It is,” I replied, my tone clipped but polite, the kind of response that sets a boundary without shutting a door entirely. I adjusted my headphones slightly, the soft strains of Coltrane still humming, just enough to suggest I wasn’t fully available for a deeper exchange. But he didn’t take the hint—or perhaps chose to ignore it.

“That ridge over there,” he continued, pointing to a faint line on the horizon, “I see places like that and can’t imagine what it was like centuries ago. Can you imagine crossing all that in a wagon? No roads, no maps. Just land.”

“Hard to imagine,” I said, a faint nod accompanying the words, hoping it would suffice. But he leaned in further, mentioning the isolation, the sheer audacity of it, and then, as if steering the conversation into more deliberate territory, asked, “You traveling for work or for fun?”

I hesitated. There was an easy way out of this—a quick, vague answer that would keep things surface-level. But I didn’t take it. Maybe it was something in his voice, or maybe it was the train itself, its slow and deliberate motion inviting a kind of honesty I didn’t realize I was willing to offer.

“Neither,” I said, glancing out the window. “More for clarity.”

He nodded, intrigued. “Clarity about what?”

For a moment, I considered the weight of the question. The country was burning in ways both literal and metaphorical; the landscape outside might have been peaceful, but the world we inhabited was anything but.

“Everything,” I said finally. “Life, the state of things…myself.”

He tilted his head, considering my words. “Yeah,” he said, almost to himself. “Feels like that’s what we’re all looking for right now.”

From there, he told me he was from Colorado, mentioning places I should visit—the Rockies, the Garden of the Gods, some hidden hot springs he swore were worth the hike. But then his tone shifted, and his gaze seemed to narrow.

“You should definitely check those out,” he said, “but… you’ve gotta be careful. There are places, especially in the smaller towns, where people might not, uh, be so welcoming. You know what I mean?”

I nodded, the heaviness of what he didn’t say filling the space between us. I knew exactly what he meant. I’ve been Black in American for a very long time.

He leaned back, his hands resting on his thighs. “It’s not everyone, of course. I mean, I’m from Colorado, and I’m a liberal. Voted blue my whole life. But, you know, some folks out there…they’re still living in another century. I try to talk to my parents and some of the guys I hunt with—but—yeah. Dated mindsets.”

I offered a faint smile, the kind that doesn’t quite reach your eyes. “I hear you.”

I was going to leave it at that, at the faint smile, the subtle nod that signals an end, the kind of exchange that allows both parties to retreat to their respective corners of ambiguity. I was going to simply say, “I hear you,” and exit the conversation. But something came over me, a tide that refused to pull back.

“Don’t you ever get tired of it?” I asked, my voice even, careful not to betray the pointed edge underneath.

He blinked, caught off guard. “Tired of what?”

“The balancing act,” I said. “Of having to pretend you care about what happens to someone like me while still holding space and enjoying life with people who you say have ‘dated mindsets.’ But it’s more than that. It’s real for me. Those mindsets are the reason I can’t get off this train in certain areas during this ride. The reason why, tonight, I’m going to lock my door and push my luggage against it while I sleep.”

The words floated between us like a ball of energy no one knew to do with. He stared at me, his lips parting slightly as if to form a response, but nothing came out. I watched his face shift, the warmth from earlier replaced by something more opaque, something uncomfortable.

Finally, he managed, “Well, what should I do? Just stop talking to everyone I know?”

I let the question settle for a moment. Then, I met his gaze. “Either that,” I said, my tone as steady as the train beneath us, “or stop pretending to care about someone like me. As if you can actively be on the right and wrong side of history at the same time. It’s going to be important to know who’s really on our side during this second administration.”

He turned his head, his eyes moving to the window as if seeking refuge in the passing scenery. The silence between us thickened, not quite awkward but unmistakably heavy. For a minute or so, neither of us spoke. The train continued its rhythmic journey, the wheels churning against the rails, a steady reminder that the world moves on regardless of our discomfort.

Finally I stood up. “I think I’m going to head back to my room and rest for a bit,” I said, turning to him with what I hoped was a polite but unmistakable finality.

“Not a problem,” he said, flashing a slight smile. “It’s been great talking to you. I’m gonna do some writing anyway. I don’t know if you do anything artistic, but the train’s a great place for that.”

“Yeah, it seems like it,” I replied, nodding faintly. “I plan to do some writing too. I have some deadlines to get to.”

That caught his attention. His brow furrowed, his expression suddenly curious. “You write for a living?”

“Something like that,” I hesitated, unsure why I had even offered that much, but the truth slipped out before I could think better of it. “Writing isn’t sustaining me financially the way it used to. I guess people aren’t interested in what I have to say anymore. Or maybe they were never really interested in me. Maybe I’m not the right messenger. Maybe I’m just not a good writer. I don’t know.”

He tilted his head, his gaze softening like he was searching for the right thing to say. “What have you written?” he asked, his tone light, like he didn’t want to pry but also wanted me to feel seen. I could tell he was just being nice.

“A little this, a little that,” I said, brushing the question away with a small shrug.

“No, I’m serious,” he pressed. “If your stuff’s online, I’d love to read it.”

I paused, then offered what I hoped was a quick way out of the conversation. “Sure. I have a few books. Look up Frederick Joseph.”

His face brightened in polite acknowledgment. “Will do. Thanks for the recommendation.”

“Have a good afternoon,” I said, standing before he could ask me anything else. I walked away, back to the narrow hall, back to my room, back to the quiet I had come here for. When I closed the door behind me, I let out a long breath and sat down by the window, the faint hum of the train filling the small space.

The exhaustion was not just physical—it was a soul-deep weariness, the kind that no nap, no meal, no kind word could entirely erase. I hadn’t rested, truly rested, in what felt like months. Years? The kind of rest where your body finally gives itself permission to loosen its grip on the constant vigilance, where your mind untethers from the spinning wheel of everything left undone. That kind of rest felt like a distant memory, something I used to know but couldn’t quite recall. So I did the only thing that felt within reach: I laid down on the bench in my cabin, staring out the window upside down as the sky deepened into shades of orange and pink, and let myself drift.

The next morning, I woke before the sun had fully crept over the horizon, the faintest blush of light edging against the dark, as though the day itself was testing its resolve to begin. The cabin was still, the hum of the train a quiet reassurance, and for the first time in what felt like years, I was alone with the silence. It reminded me of the mornings before I had Stokely, my black pit-labrador mix, who has a remarkable talent for turning any early movement into an invitation to start the day with his boundless energy. These days, writing at dawn had become a relic of another life, one where mornings belonged to me and not to the demands of companionship or routine.

But this trip, I decided, would be different. I was going to reclaim those moments, the ones I had let slip through my fingers while navigating the fractures of life and responsibility. If the train was meant to untangle me, then I would let it, starting with the small ritual of writing before the world stirred. I grabbed my laptop, and made my way to the observation car, hoping it would still be empty, a cathedral of quiet waiting for me.

I was right. The observation deck was near-deserted, save for a handful of passengers clustered at the far end, their faces turned to the windows as though the sunrise might offer them answers. I found a seat where the light was beginning to spill across the glass, and I opened my laptop with the kind of deliberate care one reserves for things they hope will carry them. The cursor blinked at me, insistent and expectant, and I began to type. And I wrote until the sun rose higher, gilding the Colorado landscapes we were now entering, their beauty an unspoken reminder that there were still things worth marveling at in the world.

Eventually, the ache in my stomach reminded me that I hadn’t eaten since the afternoon before. I closed the laptop, tucking it away as though it held something fragile, and made my way back through the train to the dining car.

The dining car had the same muted sound as the rest of the train, the kind of ambient noise that feels both intimate and detached. When the waiter walked me to a table where an older white couple sat silently, their gazes fixed on the window, I hesitated. Something about their stillness felt uninviting, as if I were intruding on a private ritual. I turned to the waiter, gesturing to the other empty tables. “Do I have to sit here?” I asked, my voice quiet but firm.

She explained, with a note of apology, that it was policy to seat at least four to a table before allowing someone to sit alone. I slipped her a twenty-dollar bill, the edges softened from the heat of my pocket, and asked if she might make an exception. She hesitated, glanced over her shoulder, then nodded. A moment later, I was led to a table by the window, the solitude I craved now intact.

I ordered without much thought—a breakfast plate, something predictable—and stared out at the ever-changing view. The landscape stretched wide and unbothered, a soft blur of snow-capped greens and golds that felt otherworldly. Then I heard it. A familiar voice, faint at first, growing closer. “Mind if I sit here?” It was the man from the observation car the day before. The waiter, bless her, intercepted. “I believe he’d prefer to sit alone,” she said, her tone kind but firm.

With a long, reluctant sigh, I turned to the waiter. “It’s fine,” I said, and she nodded, gesturing for him to sit across from me.

He took his time settling in, arranging his jacket over the back of the chair, tapping the edge of the table as if to announce his presence without words. I looked back out the window, hoping he’d take the cue. But after a minute or so of silence, he spoke.

“Things can be beautiful and ugly at the same time,” he said, his voice quiet but pointed, like a stone skipping across water.

I nodded without looking at him. “Yup.”

He shifted in his seat, leaning forward slightly. “I read your poetry collection last night,” he said. The words landed like an unexpected gust of wind, shaking something loose in the air between us. “I’ll have to get a physical copy when I’m back home so I can really sit with it. I love poetry. And—” he hesitated, “I downloaded the Audible version of your book on patriarchy. Got about halfway through this morning. You’re a hell of a writer.”

I turned to him, surprised. He must have seen it on my face because he smiled, a faint, self-aware tilt of his lips.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I said, my tone measured but sincere.

“Maybe not,” he replied, “but I’m glad I did. And I knew I should, because of what you said yesterday—about the balancing act, about who I am and who I’m going to be now that Trump’s back in office. That hit me, hard. Figured anyone challenging a stranger like that may have something interesting to say on the page.”

He paused, his eyes fixed on me, searching for something. “Reading your work, listening to your words... it’s clear this country doesn’t deserve you—or people like you. And yet, it’s obvious you love it more than the ‘patriots’ who don’t want you here.”

I let his words sit, heavy and unfinished. Finally, I said, “I don’t know that I love America. But it’s all I know. It’s all I have. So I fight for it. And I fight so others won’t have to. But we’re losing.”

He tilted his head, his brow furrowed. “So how do you think we win?”

I stared at him for a moment, weighing the question, the enormity of it. Outside, the landscape blurred past, indifferent to the weight of our conversation. I leaned back in my seat, folding my arms across my chest. “We win,” I said slowly, “by allowing ourselves to be wrong and having the courage to then get it right. Then one day being fine with that version of right not being enough and being comfortable with doing more. Changing more. Being better. We stop balancing and choose.”

He repeated my last words, “We choose,” as though the phrase itself were a revelation, a mantra he was learning to carry. He said it again, softer this time, almost to himself, as if tasting the truth for the first time.

There was a silence for a while until our breakfast arrived and he asked me which verses had mattered most to me as a writer, and I asked him about the poetry he had read over the years. From there, the conversation expanded into something wider. We named our favorite writers, then our favorite films, and before long, we had drifted into music, into politics, into the scars of heartbreak and the things in our lives that had been claimed by time. We spoke of loss—not as an abstract concept, but as something real, something that leaves a shadow on the body.

There were points of agreement, and there were points where we diverged. Yet, it was not the kind of divergence that builds walls; it was the kind that reveals secret entrances of thought. We offered each other our vantage points, each shaped by a life the other could not fully inhabit. And in that exchange, something began to form—not understanding, exactly, but a willingness to stand in the tension of the other’s truth.

The hours dissolved. The train pressed forward, as America passed us by in jagged, uneven beauty. It was an America I had never seen other than documentaries and textbooks. It was raw. It was vast. And in so many ways, it still looked so young.

At some point, we made our way to the observation car, back to the seats where we’d met the day before. And we laughed—laughed so hard the sound filled the car, a defiance against those who were staring wondering why we were spending so much time with one another. And then, as if by some unspoken agreement, we let the laughter fade, and the conversation turned deeper. He told me about his father, about the chasm between them that neither time nor words could bridge. I told him about my mother, about how her love and her failings are two sides of the same coin I still carry in my pocket.

The train swayed, the light shifted, and I realized I hadn’t looked at my phone once. The moment felt sacred in its simplicity: two strangers, bound together by the motion of a train, talking as though the world’s fires could still be put out. Something freer flickering at the edges of every word.

Eventually, the sun dipped, and the light in the observation car softened into that indistinct haze that comes just before darkness fully arrives. He stood then, Richard, the man from Colorado, and told me his stop was coming up soon. “I need to go pack,” he said, his voice quieter now.

We exchanged farewells—not with any great ceremony, just a simple acknowledgment of what had passed between us. But as he turned to leave, he paused, his hand lingering on the edge of the seat. “Thank you for this,” he said, looking at me with an earnestness that felt almost fragile. “You’re right—it’s all a choice. Whether this country is beautiful or ugly... it’s a choice. I choose the time we spent here.”

I smiled, nodded, unsure of what to say in return, and perhaps understanding that words weren’t necessary. Then he added, as if it had only just occurred to him, “Do me a favor, though.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Don’t ever stop writing,” he said, his tone firm but kind. “It’s gonna find the people who need it most.”

And with that, he walked away. We didn’t exchange numbers or email addresses, no attempt to tether this moment to anything beyond itself. I think we both knew, even if we didn’t say it, that what had happened wasn’t meant to leave the train. It belonged to the rails, to the hours we spent moving through a country that felt as if it were both unmaking and remaking itself at once.

I stayed in the observation car for a while after he left, watching the sky deepen into a bruised violet, then the kind of black that swallows everything. The train was quieter now as it pulled me further west, further into the folds of this country’s quiet scars and restless beauty. I sat alone until the early hours of the morning, the observation car almost empty, and the sound of the train the only conversation to be had.

I thought about the conversation with Richard, about the Trump flags the day before, about the difficult year I had, about the countless miles of land we had passed about what it means to live in a place that both betrays and nurtures you, a place that molds you in its flames until you are something fierce, something tender, something whole and undone all at once.

What does it mean to love a country that does not love you back? It means loving anyway. Not the borders, not the systems, not the sin. But the people. The moments. The fleeting spaces where connection takes root despite everything. It means loving enough to tell the truth, to demand better, to refuse despair even when it feels like the only reasonable choice. It means fighting, not because victory is guaranteed, but because defeat without resistance is unthinkable.

I didn’t know what I was searching for when I decided to ride that train. I only knew that the weight of everything—this year, this body, this country—had grown too heavy to carry alone. But somewhere between the fields and the mountains, in the silence of a room that held only me, in the unexpected company of a man who dared to lean into discomfort, I found what I needed. A reminder.

The efforts we are putting in matter. My writing matters. Me trying to stay alive matters. My heartache matters. Even in a country steeped in sin and hatred, there are things to grasp onto. Because we will certainly be made to feel alone. This place, this presidential administration, this world will try its best to isolate us, to strip us of our shared humanity and the quiet beauty of being together. But we must refuse.

If we can resign ourselves to becoming better than we sometimes know we can be, and if we can do so together—whether in conversation with one person or in collective with hundreds or thousands—we will win. Not in the grand, sweeping way history books like to define victory, but in the small, steady ways that keep us human. In the quiet triumphs of connection, in the radical act of hope, in the refusal to let despair be the final word.

We must choose to hold on. To each other. To the reasons. To the fight. We must refuse to let go, even when the train sways, even when the rails creak beneath us, even when the journey feels endless and the destination unclear. Because somewhere along the way, we will find what we need.

Wherever our battles are fought, we will win. Not because it is easy, but because we must.

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