Inner Voice

The Pick Up

Music pounding, heart racing
eyes crawling, seeking
leering, lingering, longing
for something, someone
A glass of nerve on the rocks
a sip of courage like a cure all
I need the strength
something to wash down fear
another one please, I still feel
A smile from over there
maybe this is it, maybe tonight
Should I say hi, just stand near?
What do I do, what do I do?
I can't do this, I never could
Make my way to the door
break free, that was close

Last Call

His mother was a woman
who lived her life in a beer bottle
Who saw the world through
brown glass and bloodshot eyes
Easily moved from barstool
to bedroom by a man with
a Stetson and a swagger in his step
She brought men home
as a child would a stray mutt
and kept them - if they’d stay
Well known in every barroom
on every sawdust covered floor
in every dark hole in town
She’d grab him by the arm
My boy, my boy, my son
pride spilling from her, slurred
as she described her motherly prowess
while he stood there, eleven or twelve
pleading for 2 am and last call

Broken

I didn’t want to see you
tubes and wires
strapped to the bed
I wandered through the hospital
That labyrinth of halls
filled with the moans
of sickness and death
to avoid seeing you there
Only once did I cross the threshold
to your sterile, steel room
stood next to the bed
awkward, unsure of how
or what I should do
You told me how they had
opened you to fix the broken heart
Just pulled the bones back, you said
You were scared, I could hear
it in your voice, see it in your eyes
and that scared the hell out of me
You had never been a father
like those tv shows said you should
never tossed me a ball, taught me to ride
held my hand when I was small
but with you broken, in that room
I wanted to be the son
that all those tv shows said I should
but I didn’t know how

If I…

If I had known it was the last time
that I would touch your face
I would have held on longer
Would’ve made you want to stay
If I had known you would be gone
no trace of what we were
I would have said I love you
a hundred times or more
If I had known you would stop
loving me the way you did
I would have given more of me
tried to make you understand
If I had known you were leaving
taking everything we had made
I would’ve saved myself the break
and taken my heart back instead

If You…

If you had known it was the last time
would you have held onto me tighter
Told me the truth before you left
just to make it a little easier
If you had known what would happen
would it be any different
Would you change the way it ended
or did you make it out all right
If you had know how I would break
would you sit and watch me cry
Offering no hand to hold me
no comfort while I fell apart
If you had known how much it hurt me
that you would never tell me why
Would you be a man and answer
Instead of just turning to walk away

Snow Day

Button down wool jacket
snuggly fit against my frame
Slippery sliding across the ice
that has covered the sidewalk
like a crystalline, frozen frosting
The trees seem to shiver
as they wearily bear the weight
of the snow, ice and wind
Ice rink streets can’t be bothered
to carry travelers, move the masses
they will remain still, silent
What was the lawn is now a
white powder field, soft and smooth
it ripples and waves with drifts
A red, knitted cap crowns my head
pulled down over my ears to keep
the wind from nipping my lobes
An adventurer at the North Pole
this is my trek, my journey
into the great white unknown
but no adventure awaits me
no true voyage lay at my feet
Nothing more than a morning
in rural Oklahoma and the glory
of the first snowfall of winter.