i'm thinking...
...of a number...
*
and i was so much easier to deal with when it was just speakers, the wires running in between rooms, the front room was left, the kitchen was right, and in the hall and dining room was the middle. and centering it all was me just deciding how i felt like how i wanted to hear it all. maybe it was NPR tonight. maybe WYEP. Maybe it was putting random discs in the player and seeing what happens. And maybe I end up keeping note of how it plays because it makes more sense. But then there are those times when I call in and they play my song...and maybe it's Beth Orton. and I hear her sing. and I remember. and I wonder what happened. where did I go. what did i do. was it worth it? all those late nite conversations? it's like... it's like... maybe I could have been. maybe i can still be. maybe i can still maybe i can maybe i maybe maybe it's just another jacksonville skyline. maybe it's just a 50 cent picture frame. maybe it's just memories...thrown out there, maybe catching something, someone, hell, anything anymore. maybe... maybe all i'm good for is memories. rememberances of things past. spelling errors and all. perhaps my lot in life is just to see what could have been and ensure that others don't fade out. better to burn out than to fade away. HURRAHH!!! but somehow... hey, bar lights in the liquor, see how the bottles shine... you'll feel fine. wait for it... look, i found four more dollers... write your name down on this matchbook sleeve call me up on sunday for a drink call me up on sunday, it don't mean anything... and it didn't, the times we spent, the lazy mornings where i just wanted to stay in bed but you called me up and you still bugged me because you knew i was only ten doors down from you on parkview, and you had no one to hang out with and wanted to get high with...I was there. I marched thru the snow, I put up with your strange girlfriends and boys who I wanted to kick in the ass because they got to sleep with you and i didn't. I had the occasional house party just to make sure we had the Parkview for life going...but all I wanted was you and it never worked out. and the funny thing is, in the end i still end up loosing track of everyone. despite my best efforts. I still have the restaurants on my resume, but names? they are all gone. you all went away. transient, just like me, despite how much we all loved Pittsburgh. gotta go. the time is only for a season, a year, maybe two, and then we are all gone. and it's probably all for the best, this way. having loved and lost and never knowing that part of you. I see a better part of me in that life, the part that still cared, had a heart, had something to give when I still knew what it meant.
*
I sit on the outside deck, a stranger in a place I never thought I'd be, a prisoner to things that I once thought enabled me to get free from myself. I wonder where it all took us, the people and places, was it worth it? I'm not old, yet I find myself looking back on these times only ten years ago and wondering, was it even possible that I could have seen myself homeless, lifeless, that much time later?
*
Shuffling through the snow, that winter was horrible, and even after I did my neighbors sidewalk I still questioned why I was going over to your place. I knew that just ten doors down the morning would change, yet I remained hesitant. But I still went. The girl I was seeing was there, and the girl I wanted was there, and in it all I was going to be the only boy who could just come and be anything. anything at all.
*
and i was so much easier to deal with when it was just speakers, the wires running in between rooms, the front room was left, the kitchen was right, and in the hall and dining room was the middle. and centering it all was me just deciding how i felt like how i wanted to hear it all. maybe it was NPR tonight. maybe WYEP. Maybe it was putting random discs in the player and seeing what happens. And maybe I end up keeping note of how it plays because it makes more sense. But then there are those times when I call in and they play my song...and maybe it's Beth Orton. and I hear her sing. and I remember. and I wonder what happened. where did I go. what did i do. was it worth it? all those late nite conversations? it's like... it's like... maybe I could have been. maybe i can still be. maybe i can still maybe i can maybe i maybe maybe it's just another jacksonville skyline. maybe it's just a 50 cent picture frame. maybe it's just memories...thrown out there, maybe catching something, someone, hell, anything anymore. maybe... maybe all i'm good for is memories. rememberances of things past. spelling errors and all. perhaps my lot in life is just to see what could have been and ensure that others don't fade out. better to burn out than to fade away. HURRAHH!!! but somehow... hey, bar lights in the liquor, see how the bottles shine... you'll feel fine. wait for it... look, i found four more dollers... write your name down on this matchbook sleeve call me up on sunday for a drink call me up on sunday, it don't mean anything... and it didn't, the times we spent, the lazy mornings where i just wanted to stay in bed but you called me up and you still bugged me because you knew i was only ten doors down from you on parkview, and you had no one to hang out with and wanted to get high with...I was there. I marched thru the snow, I put up with your strange girlfriends and boys who I wanted to kick in the ass because they got to sleep with you and i didn't. I had the occasional house party just to make sure we had the Parkview for life going...but all I wanted was you and it never worked out. and the funny thing is, in the end i still end up loosing track of everyone. despite my best efforts. I still have the restaurants on my resume, but names? they are all gone. you all went away. transient, just like me, despite how much we all loved Pittsburgh. gotta go. the time is only for a season, a year, maybe two, and then we are all gone. and it's probably all for the best, this way. having loved and lost and never knowing that part of you. I see a better part of me in that life, the part that still cared, had a heart, had something to give when I still knew what it meant.
*
I sit on the outside deck, a stranger in a place I never thought I'd be, a prisoner to things that I once thought enabled me to get free from myself. I wonder where it all took us, the people and places, was it worth it? I'm not old, yet I find myself looking back on these times only ten years ago and wondering, was it even possible that I could have seen myself homeless, lifeless, that much time later?
*
Shuffling through the snow, that winter was horrible, and even after I did my neighbors sidewalk I still questioned why I was going over to your place. I knew that just ten doors down the morning would change, yet I remained hesitant. But I still went. The girl I was seeing was there, and the girl I wanted was there, and in it all I was going to be the only boy who could just come and be anything. anything at all.
posted by jersn at 10:57 AM
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