A life worth sharing...

For Graham

     Real story-telling doesn’t need any words at all.

     Two eyes connecting you to a life are enough

     to drive you seventy-five head-first into a divider of the past

     making you break it, break yourself back

     to a girl with some kind of kind in her voice,

     converting the blues into a tendency towards melancholy

     or my past.

I shape-shifted my way through every class

of girls, drugs, songs and hoops

being the only kind of asshole you have to like,

telling myself I didn’t have to care,

as long as I had a court to lay my head on

and a bag of coke to take me away

from the white Halls,

my own home in hell

as an 18-year-old,

I’m the ultimate romantic

beneath a skin of damaged

rebellion and Clint Eastwood,

nose ring and all.

Late nights left me

tripping over everything but my shoes.

I felt a hand on my shoulder binding me down

with the same kind of grace I was told to live by,

from a Presbyterian pulpit,

pushing my 1.75 GPA in my face

telling me that I just didn’t get “it”

and making me become a man

of more than just soft eyes.

When Caroline went silent

they didn’t leave the side of her crib,

crying more tears than she had breaths

to breathe in a world of addiction,

divorce, death and Captain Hook,

with an exhale of hope

the way only a child can.

When you’re sad and when you’re lonely

And you haven’t got a friend

Just remember that death is not the end

And all that you’ve held sacred

Falls down and does not mend

Just remember that death is not the end

Not the end, not the end

Just remember that death is not the end

He fell down south,

the enemy of his family

with the world piled on four wheels,

a hole of substance taking him

farther.

Father.

Three years away kept him alive.

He was a friend to his son

on the rougher side of life,

just another channel on talk radio

with a need for change.

Before I knew it I was lost

in a war I didn’t begin by sneaking out

for the five hundredth time.

It was miserable

but we were miserable together

and there is something really beautiful about that

so I survived the world in camouflage

and made my way to a state of purpose.

I took my Harley to Yuma,

to the River Theme of folk rock.

She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen,

and they say I’m well-spoken.

She took my heart to Nashville the next summer.

I never heard from her again.

     I still love the city, love her,

     thrive off the way she hypnotizes me

     with a grimy type of comfort

     telling me to Stay All Night,

     to remain undefeated

but I come alive

in the blue and dirty of Memphis,

finding fulfillment in the back of a juke joint,

a hard drink in hand

surrounded by the kind of rough people I prefer,

and a couple of Black Keys

to take me home.