(But Here We Are) - Xerxes

It’s funny how all those things you never wanted to remember,

blocked out and you turned your back on in the name of moving on,

they come back to you on January nights.

You realize the reason you’ve been drinking alone,

the reason you’ve been letting the silent passive disarray creep in,

the reason you stopped writing, stopped reading, stopped sleeping,

stopped loving is because there was never a step forward

or even an honest gaze towards the setting sun following the Ohio river,

running steadily towards Missouri.

And something comes along, it comes along and you expect it,

but you didn’t know it could inhabit such a form such a sleek soft skin.

But nonetheless, it’s there in your bed, a Tuesday morning in early December

and you get to thinking, don’t you?

All of a sudden, you’re retracing that final conversation

before she moved to California and then the two weeks later

when you caught her out of the corner of your eye from your barstool.

There was a shot of old granddad in front of you

before you could even pull out your wallet.

You’re piecing together the swigs of W.L.

Weller

in the bucket seats of the van, a parking lot of some old bowling alley.

There are a hundred or so people in the basement

waiting for you to play songs that mean nothing to you,

at least in the context of a face.

You’ve invited this blonde model, you wonder if she’ll show

so you keep pulling on the bottle and wait to see what happens.

Turns out she does, but so do the last three girls you recall

saying «I love you» to, and they all want a piece of you.

So it’s a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon from the bar

and falling into the drum set and can’t you see all this time it was all too

much?

Just 21 and so empty, so fucking tired, so worried about nothing.

Dad phoned the next day, said to stop drinking.

He wasn’t even there.

You’re picturing moving out of that Chestnut Street apartment,

in all its ragged rooftop beer glory, in all its mistaken nakedness.

You moved the bed because you couldn’t sleep in that corner any more

after you realized you weren’t in control.

Never did call the landlord after the door was kicked in in December.

Held a vendetta against squirrels after noticing the grey tails finding winter

refuge above the ceiling tiles.

When you were putting the finishing touches on a move out destined to cost

you a full unreturned deposit, the power was shut off while you were vacuuming,

you laughed and got the fuck out of there forever.

«But here we are» she says.