Wine not Whine

The Ghost Of Tom Joad– Bruce Springsteen
Radioactive– Imagine Dragons
I Will Wait– Mumford & Sons
BURN IT DOWN-Linkin Park
Reflections Of My Life– The Marmalade
Sgt MacKenzie – We Were Soldiers Soundtrack with Lyrics

Dear woman,

You are out there living your life without me, but that is just for the moment because you will return and we’ll find time to see each other. It will be soon but soon feels like forever and I would say that even if I hadn’t finished most of a bottle of wine.

Yeah, you could say that the man at the keyboard isn’t in a state to make decisions, judgement or engage in any sort of rational thought and he would say ‘fuck it’ because he can. That is just how it is right now or maybe it is because every time we are separated for any length of time it feels like someone cut out my heart and left a great hole in my chest.

A great gaping wound from which I hear the air passing through my ribs and wonder when I turned into this man who is so needy and dependent upon you but then again I hear you, feel you, sense you thinking about me and it is not because of the texts or emails. It is because you and I are a part of each other.

It is not you and it is not I, it is we.

That is how it should be described- it is we.

But we are separated now for an acceptable reason, a planned trip and I shouldn’t care but I do because right now life is unpredictable and unsteady. It is a seesaw that tips in and out of flames. I may not be dancing in the fire as I once was nor am I alone and apart but my heart hurts and my soul screams because of all those things you know about.

Because when a man tries as hard as I have to do what I have done it hurts to fall and fail. But I never lie down or give up because it is not in my nature or part of my character to do so. I keep going no matter what happens and even if all of my bones were broken I would continue because it is what I do.

He looked own at the page and rolled his eyes in disgust at what he saw. The words were awful and he wondered what the hell he was thinking.

Bartenders aren’t supposed to write stories, The pour drinks, they listen and sometimes they tell stories but they don’t write and the words he looked down upon were proof.

*****

Several months had passed since the man in black had visited his bar and he had no idea if the woman he had spoken about as the one that got away had kept her distance or broken her vow to never see him again.

The last time I had seen him he had told me about how they were finally in the same city but that he was refusing to contact her. I told him I thought he was foolish not to reach out to her. I said you only get so many chances in life and that only a fool would pass it up.

He didn’t know me well enough to recognize that I never said things like that and that I never involved myself in my customers lives. He didn’t know me well enough to hear the anger/concern in my voice. He wasn’t going to recognize that some of the emotion stemmed from my frustration with myself.

I don’t get involved because it leads to trouble and I don’t need or want that.

Except this jackass and his story had managed to pull me in and make me do what I didn’t want to do. Had made me break my rule.

He had chased her for years, done everything he could to win her back and she had repeatedly snubbed him, told him it would never happen.

And then when he finally changed the equation by moving to the same city as her, when he finally upset the apple cart and created opportunity he turned around and showed her his back.

It made no sense to me. In the early stages of trying to catch a woman it makes sense to maintain some mystery. Makes sense to try and reel her in a bit closer by playing hard to get, but not when you already had something. You didn’t do it then because there was a good chance she would take it as being rude or interpret it literally as meaning he had no interest.

Why would we do that.

Months went by without an appearance and I started to forget again about him. Out of sight out of mind came into play and I forgot about how interested I had been in.

And then one day he walked through the doors and this time he wasn’t alone. I didn’t have to ask to know that the woman holding his hand was the mystery woman I had heard about.

They grabbed a booth -in the back, ordered a couple of beers and stayed there. Soft lighting draped across their faces left them partially lit and partially hid in the shadows.

It was like they had an open secret that they hid and yet announced.

You Know I’ll Miss You

You ask me if I am going to miss you while you are gone and I turn the question around on you. Push you to be the one who says you’ll miss me and then when you say you love me I smile.

Smile because I feel the warmth that comes with it and every time I hear it I remember…things.

Things that only you and I know, that only you and I have shared.

Remember what it is like to feel you watching me and to know that you are paying close attention to all the little details and though I may not look as I once did you don’t let that stop you from giving yourself to me.

And I sit here listening to Dylan singing Forever Young and I realize that is how we will always be to each other. No matter how old our physical bodies may be we will always be forever young, the boy and the girl who fell in love.

We’ll never really forget the days when we could run forever and when you could climb on my back and we would wander through our fields and wander about our kingdom.

And it will be as it always has, one kiss that changed two lives forever.

She Says She’ll Never Get Married Again

She says she loves me but that she’ll never get married again. She tells me it is overrated and that it is not something that needs to happen.

I smile at her and she asks me what I am thinking but I refuse to answer. Not sure why but I know that the time isn’t right to tell her all I am thinking and not because I don’t want to but because the timing is off.

Does she see what lies behind my eyes. Can she hear Dylan singing his Wedding Song, Lay, Lady Lay and Make You Feel My Love. Can she sense what lies beneath the surface and does she understand that my silence isn’t because of fear, anger or pain. Peel back the layers and all you find is a warm smile and love for her that never ended.

If she closed her eyes and held my hand I would guide her through the night, carry her in my arms because it is what we do and how we have always been.

I tease her about being the boss and laugh when she says she is because she knows it is me. She knows I am the guy that she always wanted and looked for. I can’t say it out loud because it sounds silly, arrogant and ridiculous but the truth is in our actions.

The woman who never let her guard down because she didn’t trust someone to be able to take care of her lets me go where others haven’t and gives to me what others never had.

It is reciprocated, cherished and appreciated.

Sometimes I see sadness in her eyes when she talks about things that happened in the past and apologizes for past hurt. I tell her not to worry and I mean it. We hurt each other but I don’t compare or compete. It is what happens sometimes and when you dance in the fire sometimes you burn.

But there is no chance to know the deeper and more mature love that we have without going through these things. You can’t get to this place without the pain that sometimes accompanies life experience. That is not rationalizing what has happened, it is just a simple truth that you can’t truly appreciate some things that you haven’t earned.

And we have earned this, whatever this is.

Finally I tell her that I don’t care what she says today about getting married because I am not asking her to marry me. I tell her I don’t need a ring to have or keep her and then I watch her eyes narrow as she tries to figure out what I am saying.

I watch her try to decide if it is a good or bad thing. I watch her try to figure out if I am teasing her or serious. I watch her conduct her silent analysis and then add fuel to the fire by telling her that at her age she doesn’t need a ring to give her permission to sleep with me.

She tells me I have a one track mind and I see that I am the precipice, in the place where she thinks she might be irritated with me but hasn’t decided if I am intentionally pushing her buttons or just oblivious.

I look at her again and smile. I tell her that I know that there may come a day in the future when she tells me that we are getting married because she has decided it is practical to do so. I tell her that I know the day may come when she decides there are tax and healthcare benefits tied into it and then I start laughing.

She laughs too because she knows I know her and then I tell her that it is good to know that her love for me is based upon a future tax return.

She rolls her eyes at me and tells me not to push my luck and then I smile and tell her it is never smart to argue with the boss. Before she can reply I pull her in and kiss her hard on the mouth.

As she kisses me back she tells me that I am not off the hook yet, “we’ll discuss it later.”

I laugh and tell her I’ll try not to snore my way through the conversation. She makes a face at me and I smile. When you fall in love with your best friend life is different.