when weeks get longer, i slowly steady my sights… i block out all the things that crawl under my skin, all the things that make me bite my nails, and all the things that make me grind my teeth… and i slowly steady my sights on a city just north of fort forth.

during the day, i’m a zombie… part of the walking dead that roams the halls and corridors of this place. part of the crowd, i’m always careful not to stand out too much. always careful not to let everyone in on who i really am… because when the sun goes down, it’s notebooks scribbled & scrawled with all my true feelings. it’s acoustic guitars setting up the backbone for things to come… and it’s a telecaster ringing so loud you’d think i’m trying to make you hear it all the way from here…and i am. i’m trying to send you something from five hours away… trying to ignore the laws of physics i’ve long forgotten. trying to send a little bit of myself in any way i can, all the time.

setting my sights on you has always been easy.

i dress in blacks & blues each morning… it seems appropriate enough for my current situation, the current state that i’m in. beat up, beat down, & hung out to dry every time i feel like i’m getting this down… but i never have.

it’s a no-end-in-sight fight that i don’t want to give up on because i’ve taken the time to try & mend my heart for you. it’s slow & i don’t know if you understand… and i can’t explain it. i’ve never been able to explain the workings of my heart, so don’t fault me for that… i falut myself enough. you told me that “distance has a way of making love understandable”, and i almost died. he was wrong, but you’re right… and i’m right. and darlin’, it’s right. and as the leaves fade & wither, i won’t. and when the nights & mornings grow colder, i won’t. i’ve worked too hard.

and i’ll be damned if i let a few hundred miles be the end of me.

it hasn’t even been eighteen hours since i’ve seen you & i’m already itching to drive the five and a half hours to see you again.

occupancy of my time now leaves a lot to be desired… me, here in the suffocating South Texas summer air, & you in the New Novel North. Bringing Down The Horse – my new soundtrack. another year older you’re about to be, with a new love that lies three hundred thirty four miles away. lately when i breathe, i breathe for you. when i talk, i talk to you. and when i look, i’m looking for you…

so i sit here at the fading location of the Liberty Bar, in love with you… where i’ve forgotten all the the things i used to think about love & time, about relationships… about hard work… about trust…

because when new is new, it’s a thing to hold onto so tight you’ll either never let it go… or you’ll choke yourself to death trying…

he died when the rafter broke – came crashing down to his death with a heavy beam upon his chest, where his heart was kept. where his love for her, which he never expressed & never confessed, slept.

and as his eyes shook back into the back of his head, they shook loose all the sad memories of all the times he never spoke the words that were dripping off the tip of his tongue. all those words, dripping off, he should’ve bottled them up… tied a ribbon around them & given them as a token of his heartbreakingly undisclosed affection.

but as it is, his body lies buried beneath a beam. his face lies buried beneath a hat, & the love in his heart lies buried beneath the things he never said… to be laid down in a coffin with the rest of him.

for the first time in my life, i think i’m aware of my body. always invincible and indestructible until lately. i can feel it working, feel it churning, feel in recouping & feel it swooning.

never one to take for granted the things i’ve been given, but this time i have. beat down, worn out, & turned off is what i am today. so settle in, darling, it’s going to be a while before i’ll rev back up to par…

and a word to all you hard-lifers – easy. easy does it.

if i find myself in a dive, i apologize… it’s just people watching & it’s just killing time. lately my days have been getting longer & longer, while my nights have been spinning away.

there’s a man running songs on a computer in the corner so the drunkards can belt out their lungs. and all the people in here… god, i know i’ll never end up like them, but i love to watch if it’s all the same to you…

i feel like a skeleton, sweetheart. dried up and rigid, with two waters for each beer i have. smoke billows up from a man’s cigarette who sits three stools down, so i go ahead and light one of my own… “and you don’t have to call me darlin’, darlin’… you never even call me by my name” keeps billowing out of a three hundred pound woman in a curled up straw cowboy hat, so i really draw on that cigarette…

and beneath my palm, you vibrate… keeping me awake, & keeping me interested. i like having more serious conversations at night… when i’ve had all day to think. i’m more ready, and honesty’s always clearer…

heartbreaking & heart taking – well honey, that’s the name of the game.
heartbreaking & heart taking – oh honey, there’s just one and the same.

ease on down beside me, darling – talk to me ’til there’s nothing left to say…
draw the smoke out of that cigarette – oh take of your necklace & all your rings.

easy on the eyes, if i may say so & easy on the thighs if i might add…
long, long nights that turn to leaving – tell me, is this every going to last.

and i know you don’t know just where you’re going,
oh and i never know how far i’ll fall…

heartbreaking, oh & heart taking – aww, honey, they’re going to kill us all.

through the eye of a minolta srt 201, i can catch a lot. i can catch single beat of hummingbird’s wing & i can catch an antique tractor that hasn’t so much as flinched since the 1920s. i can catch the bat of an eyelash or the cling of a bottle against a bottle in the hand of a friend.

but some things escape me. the way you feel now that i’m gone. the way hearts break from distrust. the way relationships form over conversation & observation. the way your heart tells you a story & your head tells a lie… and the way that you look at me. through my real eyes… not through the eye of this manually operated, out of date, amazing piece of equipment…

between the eyes of friend or the thighs of a lover, there’s a lot to learn. time is needed with both, patience is needed with both… but those things are rare, darling, because people think they’re better spent on first dates & holidays… when you dress to the nines & you show up on time like everything that you want to be. it’s a big gamble – the art of making impressions…

time & patience, better spent in better places… car rides, bar dives, long sighs, & no lies are what keep you from losing a spark. so park yourself on a sofa, take a look around, and soak it all in because time & patience, they always wear thin if you only came here to pretend.

by upturning flax, someone has crafted the sheets
that you lay on & spread out in tonight…
and by returning flax, someone has given you
the opportunity to do it again each evening.

now, i’m no one to say that i know anything
about what night time brings to you…
but i hope it brings a big calm -
a suffocation of easiness that puts you to rest -
a knock-out easiness that’s like ether to a beetle…

and just like him, you’re collected & cared for – but not on display,
for the Good Lord has taken to keep things at bay
that could possibly disturb or undo
the flax that was upturned for you.