Funny what you think of after a collapse
While lying in the dirt the first thing that comes back is never quite what you'd have guessed
And if you could have, you probably would've said you'd check if all your limbs were intact still and
then try to get out
We played house with the neighbors in their basement
Sister made me husband she was older so I did her bidding
I remember once their dad came in said, "You think this is bad?
You don't know the half." And he laughed.
It's funny what things come back
The first things you see
How he sort of smiled like it's only a joke but he was lying
There was something else inside of his eyes
All those secrets people tell to little children
Are warnings that they give them
Like, "Look, I'm unhappy. Please don't make the same mistake as me."
Why are those old worn out jokes on married life told at toasts at receptions still?
How does it never occur how often couples get burned and end uncertain in Splitsville?
Funny what you think of in the wreckage, lying there in the dirt and the dust and the glass
How you're suddenly somewhere, in the desert, in the nighttime, and it's getting close to Christmas
And then her and that movie voice she uses when she reads,
"Welcome to the Land of Enchantment" from a highway sign
And it's late so you take the next exit
When that trip ended we came back the rent was due I was jobless
I guess in retrospect I should've sensed decay
Then that day, how you said, "I just don't know" and I promised
We'd rearrange things to fix the mess I'd made here
But I guess in the end we just moved furniture around 3X
But I guess in the end it sort of feels like every day it's harder to stay happy where you are
There are all these ways to look through the fence into your neighbor's yard
Why even risk it? It's safer to stay distant
When it's so hard now to just be content
Because there's always something else
Now I'm proposing my own toast, composing my own joke for those married men
Maybe I'm miserable, I'd rather run for mayor in Splitsville than suffer your jokes again
6. 35
7. Stay Happy There
If I could play back every moment to you now
Spent lovesick and swollen on
Mornings mincing garlic on the counter by the sink
If I could hit the instant replay on only every good day
Would any of it catch you by surprise?
When you say, "something is missing now"
That's what came back to me
Normal mornings like that set the knife down and forget where I'd left it
Making breakfast
Put coffee on the stove then scour every counter for the knife
Don't be shy
Don't be kind
Somewhere snow collects and bends the boughs of pines
But doesn't it seem a bit wasteful to you
To throw away all of the time we spent perfecting our love in close quarters and confines?
Isn't it wasteful?
And I am terrified that it doesn't feel painful to me yet
Somewhere on top of the high rise there's a woman on the edge of a building at the ledge
And traffics backing up on 35
It's alright
I will fix whatever is not the sweetness in your eyes
Just sit down
Please
Sit down
Here
At the table and we'll talk
Somewhere televisions light up in the night
I know things weren't right
Maybe we were never cut out for the Midwest life
Maybe we'd have done much better on a coast
There are certain things I doubt we'll ever know
I know you were getting tired of my drinking
I guess I was never cut out for the coke scene
You were worried I would end up like your father and
Tired of the smoke and somewhere the wind blows
Somewhere a storm touches down north in Hudsonville
Somewhere the coffee starts to boil on the stove and
Somewhere the wind blows
Somewhere the river levels finally getting low
Somewhere I'm up past dawn till
Somewhere you live here still
Somewhere you're already gone
Somewhere a radio is playing in a living room
Says the city lacks the funds to fix the bridge
Somewhere the deer are overrun so they're introducing wolves back on the ridge
And from here in the kitchen
I can hear the neighbors in the alley hanging linens
And the men collect the trash bins in the street
You're speaking to me but I can't understand you
The coffee is burning and
All of the times that we spent
That road trip out west
Through desert for the rest stops the kitsch we both collect
That winter the whole weekend we huddled by the stove
The cabin I had rented
The unexpected snow
That visit for Christmas
On television binges
We'll see friends in Brooklyn
Drive south to Richmond
There's traffic on the bridge
A woman on the ledge
And everywhere the wind