“We’ve Come A Long Way” by Good Old War
Stay.
There are snowflakes on my tongue I want to melt on your inner thigh.Touch me
Till my ribs become piano keys
Till there is sheet music scrolled across the inside of my lungs.Stay - Andrea Gibson
It’s easy to think whatever you want. It’s even easier to let those blind spots blot life out, seep outward like a drop of ink on a cocktail napkin.
None of this feels particularly sad or particularly anything, in retrospect. In fact, I wouldn’t be thinking about it at all excepting a couple of factors. One: This month is the five year anniversary of my dad’s death. He died at 50, a grownup frat boy with a big heart but a quick snarl. Drinking, smoking, and drugs didn’t do him any favors. Two: I decided to quit drinking, at least for long enough to take a step back and see if that’s what I want. So far, it’s been a funny slow motion sort of struggle. It feels like stage combat, or like watching a character in a silent movie try to wrest something out of another person’s arms. No momentum at all, and no volume either. All I know is that I want to stop the slow seep of that ink blot — and I wouldn’t mind having a little company.
and do you keep making the same mistake, again and again? Do you choose what you thought was love? Do you choose what is safe and good for you- eternally tucking the wall of ice that lives inside of your chest into bed with someone who doesn’t mind the cold?
Last night I called the doctor and he said to me,
“No matter what you try to do, you’re gonna die eventually.”
Tears inside my eyes I said, “I’m scared to fade to black.”
He replied, “Girl, once you see the light, there ain’t no turning back.”
I have hugged her!
