Shivers

Nick Cave and the Dirty Three. Shivers.

I light another cigarette with my sacred heart Zippo and stretch my legs slowly under the cheap, ramshackle desk.

This is the song that is played at the end of the night in a run down sleazy club with beer sticky floors and broken locked bathrooms. This is the song the pours from the doorway as some hipster drunk back spills into the alcohol sodden night. This is the song that played as I leaned my elbows on the pockmarked bar and realised that my life wouldn't go anywhere unless I pushed it.

So many years ago. Too many years ago.

I skittered through that night (was it spring? was it summer?) with the careless ease of the blissfully unaware. Laughter spiraling through blue grey smoke until the sounds were indistinguishable from the bass thrum of the band playing. I decided to write my life story. I decided to dance with the bartender. I decided to be invincible and strong.

What happened to that girl?

I lost her on a plane. I lost her in an airport. I lost her in the heat of a decision that was supposed to change my life. I lost her on so many sleepless nights spent alone in a queen sized bed. I lost her on the jagged shoreside rocks of someone else's stoic heart. I lost her during the first dance. I lost her during the last walk away.

Well, yes. It did change my life, if you must know. And I reckon I got what I gambled for.

But, at what cost? And it surely wasn't what I had been expecting.

My sharp city mind has been lost, flailing pitifully, in the suburban soft sprawl of tree lined streets and big girl jobs.

I need to get back that predatory spark, that cold diamond shine.
I'm sure it's still there, I just need to dig down far enough.

she's the meanest mean

I'm taking my thoughts to a railway station,
put them on a train
just to see what's coming back.
It's kind of like a heart attack.