"Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack
I went out for a ride and I never went back" --Bruce Springsteen "Hungry Heart"
When I met you I was nineteen and on intimate terms
with Beat poetry and Budweiser,
sitting at the bowling alley bar, Howl in my hand,
sweat from a gin and tonic on the margins.
You'd read the books I hadn't even heard of yet,
an ex-teacher ten years ahead,
scrawling The Wall, Jean-Paul Sartre in pencil inside the cover of a book I've still got
and I miss you every time I see it.
I was like a little firefly and you the night,
warm as July, funny as the best bonfire story,
drunk as skunks and amazed with each other,
we made Detroit seem like a thing worth doing twice.
I get that ache, you know, like looking at a night road,
maybe the one you took out of town to an interview that never was.
Couldn't you have given me your unhappy restless heart?
I would've done anything to soothe the blue if you had let me.
From nineteen to thirty is a long stretch.
Maybe it began to feel like a bad fit when I sobered up.
Didn't you know, you were my favorite high and I'm sorry
if your suffering got by me, and I lost you forever
From being so sure you would always be there.
_____________
for the Sunday Muse #152.
This is brilliant, deep-rooted writing Shay — I loved it! …and I understand. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Rob.
DeleteAh, the oft-told tale. Truth be told, it's best he went away. He no doubt had hearts to break all the way across the country. Your moments are beautifully captured.
ReplyDeleteI don't think so. But thanks for reading and for the kind comment.
DeleteShay--This is pure delight. So many great lines, but I think my favorite is, "We made Detroit seem like a thing worth doing twice."
ReplyDeleteDetroit, where the weak are killed and eaten.
Delete"I was like a little firefly and you the night,
ReplyDeletewarm as July, funny as the best bonfire story,"---Love this.
Thank you, Sumana.
DeleteThis deserves a 'deep dig' ... it speaks on so many levels ... will no doubt touch readers in a myriad of ways .... a stunning write, Shay.
ReplyDeleteThanks, friend.
DeleteSome people are just our missing parts, and age and circumstance mean notbing compared to finding them. I don't know why we can't repair them, or they us, but that lack and that regret never leave the way they do. Your poem lays out the surpised joy, the pain and the loss like a banquet of life, overwhelmingly delicious, but so soon gone. Perfect song by the Boss as well. Many's the drunken night I've wailed it to feelings like these.
ReplyDeleteTwins from different (and tainted) wombs we are, in so many ways, dear BFF.
DeleteSigh. "I was like a little firefly and you the night." There is always one heart that got away we never forget. A glorious read. You took me back and I remembered. I love "We made Detroit seem like a thing worth doing twice."
ReplyDelete19 to 30 IS a long stretch; not so on the other side.
ReplyDelete“on intimate terms
with Beat poetry and Budweiser”
I love that.
“lost you forever
From being so sure you would always be there”
Fantastic ending.
I feel the acute ache of this. Some loves you never get over.
ReplyDeleteLi@tao-talk
The way you capture regret and lost love is a brilliance all it's own my friend! I love every line, and felt as though I could see your heart opening like a vault full of wealth to share. Some loves linger forever in our heart alone or not alone. Love love love love this Shay!!
ReplyDelete"I was like a little firefly and you the night,"
ReplyDeleteThis image thrilled me so
Happy Sunday. Stay Safe
(✿◠‿◠)
much love...
Such a vivid question--what is on the other side of a relationship?
ReplyDelete"I was like a little firefly and you the night" - OK, that might be one of the best lines of poetry ever.
ReplyDeleteWonders we live through those times. Singed a little but we are here now, still alive and fairly well. I live through a desertion by a girl friend of a couple of years when her "real" boy friend came home from the was, she "went out for a ride and . . . never went back." Another ditched me after 13 years of marriage for a younger student of hers. That one didn't last even a year, my next 48 and ticking.
ReplyDeleteMore, but enough here. Good photo for writing thoughts rendered, I shied from angry or fear. Thanks for hosting.
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Oh, I love this, love all the descriptive, haunting memories that slap against the reality of loss.
ReplyDeleteThese are vivid scenes . You had me hooked from that first
ReplyDeletewonderful stanza.