Maybe (Not)

You should have made me a drunkard
Should have made me a liar
Made me a preacher
With a head full of fire

I'm not much for midnight running, he tells me. Neither am I, I protest, before that very night a liar makes me, and that with a backpack of beverage. Well: it's the dark and shadowed and lonely quiet in which I feel most at home, perhaps. I mean, more at home than just the ever stretching truths. At the shop, talking of running, going on nine (?) years one way and fourteen (!) another. As usual, the constant change. At what derivative am I placated? I don't think there's a math for this.

I'll be home
When hair has fallen out
We'll be home
When it reaches the ground
We'll be home

One of these nights, she says, before I resign myself to these demons... The rest left unsaid, only hinted at, better for both of us that way. Some of us like our demons just fine, I remember, I say. Just fine. For better and for worse. She knows it's true, of course, knows the misadventure plenty well; she finds her solace in sleep and I find mine in miles and the night continues, unmoved. Isn't that always the story? And what care has the night, indifferent, always?

I know nothing was planned, you just can’t help yourself
Some people are so easily shuffled and dealt...
Yeah all I know is all I know is all I know
I’m writing this to you in reverse

To the river I went then, sleep not coming, bottle in hand and the silent, slick night for company. Cloaked in the mist, the lights of the city across bounced unevenly, furtively across the black sheen; I'd my harmonica and these legs and I walked and ran and played and drank, the night swallowing it all, forgetting as quick as it came. A Saturday night, sure, but the town quiet as ghosts, and the rain coming in steady waves. If I was cold and wet, no matter. I'd the fog of my breath and the slushy stillness, and that was enough.

We use up people, use up time
Use up places, we say goodbye
Searching for the crowded hour

We're starting a band. Probably. Maybe. I'm building up a fixed-gear / single-speed flip-flop. Probably. Maybe. I'm finding direction, not moving on again come the end of another school year. Probably. Maybe. Someday it'll all be enough. Probably. Maybe.