oh let the rain fall down
and wash this world away
oh let the sky be grey
cause if its ever gonna get any better
its gotta get worse for a day
A drop of blood drips into a muddy puddle. It's my blood, but the wound seems so far away--it doesn't seem to matter--but it's my blood, my life, drowning in a pool of muddy water. I'm nursing the little flesh wound with the absentminded thought typical of my make (so stereotypical you could buy me in your local department store, dignity not included) while I hide my tears in the torrential rain. A couple of guys are laughing and joking in a language I don't understand, changing the busted tire on my rented truck. My vision's blurry, and when the pain of my aching thumb hits me again, it seems a little more real. She's left me, I'm thinking to myself, and I feel like crying. My wallet has got twenty-seven cents in pennies and a lonely nickle. My gas gauge rests firmly in the red. My cell phone buzzes out the bass line to Short Skirt, Long Jacket.
"It's not a stupid hat," Her SMS says, "And you talk with perfect grammar."
I'm falling in love with the shadow of a relationship. Why am I out here, all alone, in the cold? Head dizzy without sleep, body aching from damage, wallet and finances in disarray, nursing a fresh heartbreak? Life is made up of cycles, claims the insert from a deck of dusty tarot cards. If you don't pursue life with the right action, you'll end up right where you've started. Still, I can't help but pretend this is a new experience, as I look up at the gray sky swelling and twisting with a storm. The pain feels new, even though it's such a familiar sting. And old, trusting friend. One who always comes back around to find me. One who can't stand to leave me alone for too long. My desperate little heartache, always eager to meet up with me again. How do you tell someone like that to shove off? You can't, so you invite them back in when it's a cold day like this one.
I got back to where I started, after I was running away from the start. Like with a track field, you know--no matter how hard or how fast you run, you always end up back at the start. On a warm night in January, it all started again. I met a cute girl in a familiar restaurant, and--like so many before her--her eyes seemed to hold the whole universe in them. An incredible, beautiful depth that took my breath away. That's when I smiled a smile I had tucked away several months prior, a smile that had been reserved for her all this time without me knowing it.
...that's when I offered her a cigarette.
