.Thought I oughta bare my naked feelings,
Thought I oughta tear the curtain down.
I held the blade in trembling hands
Prepared to make it but just then the phone rang
I never had the nerve to make the final cut.
"Carl, The Gimpy Winged Butterfly"
Sometimes I cry, like happiness is a miracle I can’t be part of
It’s raining peanut butter sandwiches! But I have to stay inside, because I’m allergic to nuts
And our heroes had guts but no glory, and there’s a story behind every kind of question
Like, where are we going? What have we seen?
We spend our lives like quarters at some slot machine, gambling away all the things we could have been
Trying to line up all those pieces of fruit to win some sort of jackpot
Because it’s easy to risk everything for anything when nothing is all you got.
And yes, there have been those who sat watching their greatest joys slink away like toys they’ve outgrown.
There have been those who have grown to feel as useless as
As useless as a pair of scissors in the hands of an agnostic with no fingers who was asked to cut thousands of paper snowflakes for a sixth grade production of a nativity play at an all-atheist high school.
But all of us studied the religion of ice cubes, wanting to be disciples of cool,
So we gave black cats the right of way,
I learned to pray for those sent overseas brandishing brutality like a brush, threatening to paint the town red.
Because there have been those who went looking for God but found religion instead.
So some of them came home in body bags, while others traded in their dog tags for a wheelchair and the ‘what was I thinking?’ mantra of gods.
And still others are starting to see the similarities between coffins and escape pods.
We’ve carried grief, we’ve carried grief as far as a bus tank of tears would allow and we know now that we build our hearts like bus stops.
We spend our lives in woodshops, using oak to make a perfect pair of feet for any occasion, we have to put our best foot forward, stepping toward another life, another choice, another goal, and if eyes are our windows to the soul, then we should riot.
Throwing rocks through the mall until everyone is free from their body and the billion-dollar industry that kept us ugly.
Because most of us up and quit, like we couldn’t do it, like in a world of six billion people we couldn’t find one person that might help us get through it and we just shake our heads.
Like the fault lies with how we were raised but we’re too young to be praised. We’re too tarnished to be great.
Raised by relatives who loved us and we still can’t relate. ‘Cause they taught us love.
So we tried, we tried booking passage through life on relationships, anchoring ourselves to the hips of another, hoping to make it to dry land.
Paying for that passage by holding our hearts in hand, and there have been those who learned to sing the cuckold song, because we think we thought we knew them better and maybe we were wrong.
They wanted someone strong and left when they realized we were the strong, silent types.
And they failed to realize we keep hurricanes in our windpipes for any occasion we must cry out, we must speak up.
As those who’ve heard us forge their hands into a beggar’s cup while we wandering wondering what it is to them we meant.
Giving a penny for their thoughts because their love isn’t worth a cent. But that’s just the venom talking.
That’s just us walking it off. That’s the cough from the round before we dust ourselves off and pull ourselves back into the saddle to ride into the sunset alone this time.
But still looking, looking for someone to help us go that last mile. Someone with a smile like a finish line that will tell us we’ve made it this time.
And maybe that’s all we are; separate dreams growing into one another, maybe the mouth of a lover can kiss the hurt away and not say anything while we sing ourselves back into each other like lullabies.
Making our eyes clamp shut like bear traps around the ankles of sweet dreams.
Maybe we’re old variations on new themes. The streams of consciousness run into an ocean of understanding while we’re handing ourselves apologies to pit against our regrets.
Trying to teach ourselves to be happy with what we’ve got because maybe this is all we get.
And sure, there have been those who have been asked to be amazing at something they had no gift for.
And there have been those who were magnificent at something they’ll never have a chance to prove, and in their way, what they were practicing, was loneliness. Which we all practice.
But oddly none of us will ever grow graceful in, so sometimes, we cry.
