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 ^{(it's beta!)}

Last year, around May, I believe, I had this recurring dream. I’d be in a room and it's empty but for a couch. Sitting in the corner of the couch with a girl in the crook of my arm. All cuddled up against my torso, you know?

I didn’t know the girl, not really. She was a sort of alligation of all the girls I’ve ever dated (2) or ever fancied (nigh countless). This one’s hair, this other one’s face, this one’s hips, etc. The overall effect was pretty much, physically, my ideal woman.

We never talked or moved, it was just the two of us sitting there, perfectly contented.

Then, I wake up, realizing it was a dream. Depressing as fuck, I'll tell you.

Anyway, the point, the reason I bring this up is that for the last week or so, I’ve had a dream like that. I’m in a park, walking along a path bordered by a short concrete wall. This girl walks towards me, her hands in the pockets of her zipped up old hoodie, the one I always saw her wearing.

This wasn’t the anonymous girl-collage from the first dream, but a girl I was friends with (and fancied a little, I admit). But I hadn’t spoken to her in months, 5 or 6. I hadn’t even been thinking of her lately.

Anyway, this girl is walking towards me and we start walking together. We sit on the ground, against the concrete wall. I remember thinking how rough it felt. She leans over me, saying something that I don't quite hear and kisses me once, lightly She’s sitting next to me, holding my shoulders. We kiss again and she laughs, and puts her head against my arm. I’m content, basking, you know? It lasts for a bit, but then she gets up quickly, an anxious look on her face, scared. She runs off, leaving me there, leaning against the wall. I get up and walk off in the opposite direction. Then I wake up.

I don’t know, maybe it was symbolic of the ending of our friendship or some shit, maybe my subconscious just decided I wasn’t being depressed enough, and wanted to remind me of the shit I miss. It sure was a downer, anyway. Bad fucking times.

When I woke up this morning, I got a pleasant surprise. A soft weight on my side, warm breath on my chest. There was a girl there, curled against my chest. Small and pale, but cute. With dark hair, dyed, I think. She had that unconscious smile that lets you know that the person wearing it wants you there next to them. I notice the twin black trails of mascara from her eyes, over those high cheekbones and down her face.. I try hard to remember what had happened last night, but only succeed in calling up flashes. Me dancing with a woman, older than I am, not this girl. Taking many, many fine drugs with my new friends. Me and this girl sitting across from each other on old couches, talking. I remember my breath hitching and I remember feeling my eyes burn with tears.

Here I am with this pretty girl I barely know, who I, apparently, at some point in the vague blur that was my night, made cry. But she’s still here, sleeping next to me, making that purring sound that sleeping girls make that I so adore. It strikes me as weirdly typical for me.

I want to wake her up, ask her if we had sex or just laid here all night, but I think I should know and that would be rude. I’ll wait for her to wake up and lie to me.

When I was young, really young, my grandmother on my mother’s side moved in with our family. This was after she started deteriorating, you know, mentally, and everyday she’d share with me bits of wisdom like “The police will use little hammers and break your teeth out if they catch you breaking laws, one for each law. They have the hammer on their belt”, “People sneak into our house some nights and put things into our food and so you’ll never know if it will be poisoned or not”, and my personal favorite, “If you ever so much as kiss a girl, you’ll get very sick and probably even die”. It was just after sharing that sage advice with me that she spun on her heel to leave my bedroom and kept spinning, pirouetting onto the floor, screaming bloody murder. She had a heart attack and died yelling on my bedroom floor. I still sleep in there. It’s a wonder I’m not more fucked up.

For me, there’s something uplifting in walking on the side of a busy road and not diving in front of the speeding cars, some sort of delay of gratification thing, I guess. It’s a cool day, the sky is dark and threatening a downpour, but for now the air is full of that fresh rushing water smell of rain. It’s going to be a good night.

As I reach the neighborhood, the last of the day’s light is fading from the sky and the street lamps are flickering to life. The old brick buildings seem to loom over the street and I begin feeling claustrophobic.

The doorbell at his apartment building is broken, so I call his cell-phone, making him open the door for me. He grins at me, grabbing me by the shoulders and pulling me in close for a hug. Dude is tripping like a blind marathon runner.

cigarette after cigarette, crushed under my insole. bridges crumbling to ash behind me, i'm Nero with this city in flames around me. i came here for one reason, and i'm not leaving empty-handed. the things that i've managed to do to myself, are worse than you could ever imagine. you're the worst thing in my life, but the one thing i can't forget. one hand on my gun and the other 'round your wrist, we're out of time, we're nearly out of here. i've got you safely where i don't want you, in the crook of my arm, and this is where you'll stay. we've been on empty for hours, but we're not stopping yet. you're sleeping next to me, we've got miles to go. i hope you're ready, 'cause this is it from now on.

I need you to tell me, you're not as amazing as I've seen. I can't have You be that song I sing, drunk and alone. When I'm cold and nauseous, and I pour sorrow into a notebook or a phone. No, I don't owe you a fucking thing, and now this is over, I don't think I could ever handle anything like it again. The radio tells me there must be 50 ways to leave your lover, and I've tried my best, but I can't think of even one. So I just packed my things, left in my car, drove 50 miles in any direction. Got lost in the desert, forty days and forty nights, searching for something I haven't figured out yet. Haven't slept in days, you know, I can't afford to. The only thing worse than my daydreams of you are those nightmares. Goddamn, why can't I get you out of my head. There are times that I think, you know, I'd be better off dead, but I'll be goddamned if I'll give you that satisfation. and I always figured you had to be dead to haunt someone, but hell, you've proved me wrong, 'cause you're still kicking, and I can't shake your ghost. There needs to be something better out here, and I'm gonna find her.

We're a pair of fearful freaks, you and me, with tattered souls and our light heads, my eyes filled with blood and your arms stinging red, cold, tired, and close in a stranger's unmade bed. Whatever's comin's gonna pass right through us, you'll see. my lip between your teeth, so close we're exchanging carbon dioxide, when I breathe out you breathe it in, when you breathe out I breathe it in, you taste like cigarettes and it's sweeter than anything else, and when the dawn comes we'll sneak out of here. Sharing a smoke on the quiet, freezing morning sidewalk, the day's new, we've got nowhere to go, but that's never stopped us before. I'm halfway through a bottle, I've got no job no school no life, When I'm bored I'm drunk, when I'm drunk I'm happy. When I'm drunk, I can tell you what I really mean to say. It's no good this way, but it's the only way I know. I wish it could be different, but I can't quite manage to change, but goddamn, I'm trying. I Promise.

I want to be someone to everybody,

or everyone to somebody.

My heart spewing smoke with every beat,

your roots wrapping it up and holding me tight,

keeping me still and safe and close to the ground,

and always close to you.

And a cold wind blows, and it pulls me hard,

and I'm dragged kicking and screaming across the cold hard ground.

but I pull back, and I hold steady, and I'm still here with you.

I need a life, I need music, I need friends, I need a job, I need you.

I need a firm hand, I need a safety line, I need sandbags, I need help.

I need to be weighed down, 'else I'm gone with the next stong gust.

It's not that I'm tired, it's not that I'm bored, you know how happy I am.

It's just so much easier to start all over, so much easier with a blank slate.

I don't like feeling this way, and I'm trying to fight it, but lord, you gotta know,

you gotta know how hard this is.

I need this heavy heart to hold me here, I need this weight on my shoulders to keep me still.

I've tried church, prayer and salvation to calm my head, to keep me from pacing,

When I kneeled before that altar, I didn't feel that warm light, no call from on high, no choir of angels,

I just felt sick.

I tried those drugs, they slowed me down, and made my head light, they cured what ails me,

that's for certain.

I found you, and you keep me grounded, there's no getting away and that's just what I need.

I want to be someone to everybody,

or everyone to somebody.