I couldn't tell you why, but I always thought the "train headed south outta bangkok down towards the water" had crashed and someone important to the narrator and his friend died. Even after all of these years, the friend still feels like the narrator is holding something back, but he's sending the postcards "where as indirectly as you can / you ask what i remember." This is a sore spot for the two of them, maybe even what drove them apart: "i like these tourture devices /from my old best friend." This also relates to the lines "I can tell you what I know / like I swore I always would / i don't think it's going to do you any good"; the narrator has gone over his a thousand times and nothing new is going to come up.
It seems like both are haunted by whatever happened and can't let it go. One stays in a single place and the other roams the world, both they're both dealing with the pain of the past.
I couldn't tell you why, but I always thought the "train headed south outta bangkok down towards the water" had crashed and someone important to the narrator and his friend died. Even after all of these years, the friend still feels like the narrator is holding something back, but he's sending the postcards "where as indirectly as you can / you ask what i remember." This is a sore spot for the two of them, maybe even what drove them apart: "i like these tourture devices /from my old best friend." This also relates to the lines "I can tell you what I know / like I swore I always would / i don't think it's going to do you any good"; the narrator has gone over his a thousand times and nothing new is going to come up.
It seems like both are haunted by whatever happened and can't let it go. One stays in a single place and the other roams the world, both they're both dealing with the pain of the past.