She was Tennessee and Virginia

You could see it in her smile.

Drifting in and out of here and there. A mushroom haze of mental health. One trip away from skippin’ out…on life and love and music. But, this hotel room smells like weed and sex and we’re both too lost to understand. We missed that this is as good as it gets. Stupid in love and high and hopeful and too old to believe in fairy tales.

I lean myself back, against the cool, calmness of the tiled kitchen floor and I settle there. In some war with myself and my mind. I look at her from time to time. These hazel eyes that control me, they roll back slightly. In some psychedelic lull from here to there.

I’d snuck in a shot or 7 by noon and we were both pretending we hadn’t noticed.

And I’m calm cool and collected, as long we don’t leave this tiled kitchen floor.

I’m sky captained out. With no ground control in sight. But, she’s smiling and she’s looking at me like I’m her savior. (I don’t even know how to save myself, y’all)

I ran it out and I ran it down.

And then suddenly there I stood.

just standing there on the edge teetering, looking out at the blurred images of interstate lines that faded out into bewilderment and pain.

I'd check my shadow from time to time. I watched it move here and there. Some back and forth kinda sway. It was like it was dancing. Psychosis and madness in some waltz of self-destruction.

It seemed that it separated, split into two. Jutting here and cutting there. The duality of indifference and forgotten lives.

One Shadow screaming

One Shadow numb.

I shook my head and rubbed my eyes. Racing thoughts erasing dreams and the slow steady strum of a Gibson lodged somewhere in my mind. I took a swig and paced the floor.

The Jack was warm and steady. A familiar comfort far from home.

Everything was muddled, blank spaces and missing days.

How long had I been there? I was uncertain and unphased. I'd looked around the suite, there were bottles on the floor and unpacked luggage on the bed. I poured a shot and

I'd drank it down quick and hard. I needed to remember and I needed to be numb.

I thought I'd lost her near Atlanta. Doubtful words and half-assed lies. They tumbled in and struck my brain. I felt them as they hit.

One shot. Two shot.

Like brain matter splitting and twisting and turning inside. I didn't remember leaving, just the Angry Fuck and her eyes. Something deep and dark and seething settling in behind the hazel, pulling her back and away.

Tiny memories flickered in, like a flashback theater of white powder dreams.

Dionysus and the Devil's dance.

Snapshots from there and there and here

I'd found some drugstore cowboy down in Austin and we'd ripped a couple lines. He had a Gucci smile and Lucchese boots and he'd asked me for a ride

to some roadside motel on some highway somewhere. He'd invited me in and...

I'd stayed for the night

One night?

Two nights?

Like a fade to black. Drug salad and sex and...

And there was the guilt.

I'd thought about calling and did a line instead. I kept a steady flow 'til I hopped my flight.

And Wound up Here

In Some Joshua Tree Hotel, teetering on the edge

With burnt spoons and dirty hands,

To wipe clean my dirty soul.

I felt the eyes upon me, like a Space Oddity out of control. I moved in and I moved out. A silent swerve from the door to a bar at midnight and I'm buying a round. There's nothing I can do. But drink it in and drink it down.

A guitar rift and a drifting mind. The bartender called me Lazarus and I looked down at my scars.

"Look up here man. I'm in danger!"

I screamed it out but it was silent and played itself out in another line.

The Troubadour was running somewhere behind a blue bird smile and I wondered to myself about freedom and fame and selling myself to the cash of the day.

Commencing countdown, I say and I'm a space cadet with cosmetic dreams, just hovering above you and me and this makeshift narrative that leads from you to her to me.

"And I think I know which way my spaceship goes..."

I toss back another shot and take it in.

We lock eyes and I cut my gaze to her

"I just wish it'd been me, I wish I'd thought of it,"

She nodded like she's heard my thoughts.

I'm ten feet tall and I know I need to walk it back. I came down for the age solar, I say.

And you look at me like it's something you comprehend.

I smile and order another round.

There's amphetamines in my pocket and a fuck in your smile and you're saying things like you're a makeshift Kurt Wilde and I'm buying the danger in your eyes

It's a steam steady roller and your smiles lying and we're a trio outside of here.

Reckless and lost. Tired of wasting gas outside of the atmosphere.

Bring it down to the boys of Quadrant 44, she said and I looked her up and down. Those boys and their viscious metal hounds, they don't come around here no more. But I let her talk until her eyes found my words.

I was looking for Oscar Wilde and emerald dreams. I don't belong here, I thought and she mumbled something akin to check ignitions and there was a moment of me and nothing and fear and a quiet throw of hands metal horns and surfer slang and a hundred thousand miles of standing still.

I can't take your eyes, she says, Heroic and strong.

I laugh it off and clutch my heart, unusual beat. It's a die a little later moment and speedball to my mind.

I push you out and away. But I nodded and let you go

"Sometimes I wonder if I'm still alive," I say to no one and nothing, maybe the 44 boys...I was was 6 feet down in July...in November...how do I walk it back down?

"Maxwell led the demon rock hand jive."

I was sixteen and too high on myself and life to know the difference. She called herself Harlow and id questioned the name. Just another dealer in another town, i thought. Maybe id said it out loud. None of it mattered. She was pushing thirty, with an almost washed up smile.

Beautiful in her own right. Too old to say yes and too hot to tell no. We'd waded around in the pond of innuendos as we passed the blunt. But then her eyes got distant and she'd grown quiet. A nudge to the right and my last drawl.

She'd found herself in the kitchen, pulling something from a drawer. I'd followed on a signaled command. I watched her cut a line and cut her eyes.

Its wasnt pleading, it was certainty.

Her lips had turned into a smile at the final snort. She knew i was watching, she knew i was there.

Shed turned to face me as she'd propped herself against the marble counter. She'd nodded an "ok" and i moved closer. I could hear The Verve Pipe playing somewhere beyond our scene. Like an out of date fade to black.

Id watched her, cut it down and line it out. "some movie bullshit," I'd thought.

Why was i here? Why me?

She stood an inçh or so below me. The height didnt give me the power to say no.

I'd done a line and then three and rested my head on her shoulder. I remember looking at her eyes, dark brown and swimming with some flicker of golden. I couldnt say now.

But i remember how it felt when she'd taken my hand. A careful entanglement of fingers and my awkward stance. She'd pushed the hair from my face, tucked it consciously behind my ear and id instinctively moved closer. She smiled as i slid inside her grasp. "ready for bed?" She'd said, "or another round?"

I watched her cut out the lines. I could hear the voices of my friends a doorway away. Laughing. But...i was transfixed. Her hand on my breast as i inhaled.

Everything was here and there except for her and me. She'd leaned in and licked her collagened lips. I watched as her tongue danced acrossed them.

She was leading me, i knew and i wanted to be led. Her mouth had found mine with ease and id drank that in. She tasted like amphetamine drip and my innocence. And for a moment we were frozen. Just stuck in that moment with the verve pipe playing somewhere in the distance and her eyes boring into me and then her head had lowered and she'd pulled away and muttered something akin to "I cant " and id said "you can." And it seemed like forever standing there. With her coked out eyes looking through me, with hunger or need or confusion?

Id pressed myself in. Closer to her. In teenage arrogance, id traced the line of her breast through her shirt. Low cut and barren white.

She'd gently nudged me away and I'd reached for her hand.

It was on me before i understood. Fast, with a need i thought i understood.

I remember the fierceness in her motions and how i arrogantly accepted it as acceptance.

She'd let me lead. A silent trail from here to there to her bed. She was hungry for my touch? A touch? And she'd laughed as id thrown her down.

Ecstasy and aging hands. Too gone from here too far to rewind.

I was coming up around Louisville

Wired out and wired up.

Just myself and I and a fragmented Mind.

I-65 looked cold and lonely,

Grey and barren,

Lost travelers fading in and out of sight

Evanescing dreamers perhaps

Losing their way in the

Staggered, illumination of tail lights

And the blinding reflections of exits untaken.

I let myself drift off into the interstate sounds,

Engines revving and purring

And the soft steady sounds of a Carolina boy

Seeping in and out of an amped up stereo.

I lit a smoke and gave in to the fuckery of my brain.

I could feel State Jail 84f approaching.

A mechanical mess of sabotage and fear.

I'd caught the white line fever and

I'd ran.

Ran away from things I loved,

From things I hated...

But most of all, I was running from me.

I'd Monsterflipped in some suburb in Franklin.

Sat down on the sidewalk and watched the stars fall out of the sky.

It was like an astral shower of everything that was wrong and everything that was right in my world.

It all rained down around me.

There were moments of amusement and moments of pain

And there were moments that I wished you were beside me.

So distant now

That it's hard to remember.

Four hours and a lifetime ago, I think.

The amphetamine dilemma solved itself

And I headed out.

Or headed home or something akin to home.

There was this farm out in Jefferson.

Roads and fields I'd known in my youth.

I was looking for safety and shelter and

The me before the Moloko Plus had taken hold.

I'd taken the turns without knowing

Right, right, left.

Dilated eyes fighting with the chaos within.

I reached for for the pipe,

Just to take off the edge

I was still choked on the bud

When my high beams hit the drive.

That wrap around porch,

The hangar to to the the left.

I could smell the rolled hay

Dancing in and out of my Nashville green

I fell back. Smooth leather embraced me.

And suddenly...it didn't matter where I'd been, it didn't matter what I'd done...

It didn't matter who I was now.

I was suddenly Junior League dreams and English jumpers.

Just a fading photograph of a life once lived.

I tried to be Stoic

But my shoulders caved. I drew into myself and averted my eyes.

It was 6 P.M and I was on Morrison Time. Consecutive sunsets bled into a blur of consecutive suns rising.

I heard you breaths as you slipped off. I tried to be quiet. I tried to be calm. You were drifting to dreams and ready to crash and i was hyped up on white line dreams and overtaken with white line fever.

I wanted to go. I wanted to run. But...your breaths drew me in. Soft and steady. Something slipping in between the muddled noise of this hotel and the steady, monotonous tones of a local anchor somewhere.

I looked at your face, changed now and wiser. Your Wilder days were behind you and i was a split second from a monster flip. The Hell Dust had its hold. I needed to go, to ride this high alone. But your breath... soft and shallow stunned me to stillness. You whispered my name as you slept. I moved closer and loaded a bowl. Just a little green to take off the edge. I wanted to hold you, to feel your skin... soft and warm against me.

I crushed a bar, to bring me down and you moved at the sound. A quite request. Like an invitation to your bed. I tried to come to you, frozen their in fear of myself. You said my name again, your golden eyes brought to life by my high.

It was 7. P.M when my fingers found your skin. Your breath quicken at my touch. I knew i should go. Theres a thin line between fuckin and making love, i thought. And i was crossing it now. My lips tracing your thigh, you pushed closer...an eager gesture of lust and need. There was peace and heaven in your sighs, in your cunt, in your need. It was fast and fleeting and then your head was on my chest. Your hair tangled and wild against my tits. It felt like home. But i knew when your eyes closed i would go.

It was 9 P.M when kissed you softly and stroked your hair. I quick movement and my things were packed. I took one last look as I opened the door. I wanted to stay but the cycle was set deep inside me. I was a runner. The fear or you and me.

It was 9:15 when the elevator door open. The tears were coming now. The door closed and I was alone.

I tried to be Stoic

But my shoulders caved.

They say you can't come home again, you know, and maybe they're right. But I'd been away too long. I'd blame it on work or life. It wasn't that. Maybe it was the booze or the drugs or maybe it was those blood splattered memories that gnawed their way into my brain.

Mama wanted me home for Christmas though and I was never good at tellin' Mama no. The bags were packed, gifts were wrapped and I watched my girl as she carefully placed and loaded the cargo for the ride. I'd asked her to stay...out of fear and I'd remitted the request out of Hope. It was Christmas after all.

Virginia to Kentucky isn't a long drive, not if you can stay outta your head and catch the beauty of an Appalachian winter as you go. But She could sense the tension as the key turned and the engine started its interstate sonata.

The roads were all to familiar, we'd stopped for coffee near Bristol and I'd put Jameson in my cup. I lit a joint and haphazardly passed it as I drove. We were mostly silent for the drive. Occasionally her fingertips would find my hand, clenched anxiously around the transmission lever. It was an awkward sort of comfort when I felt her touch.

Like my worlds were folding in around me and the collision was inevitable but bearable, as long as she was with me. I blocked it all out and focused on the road. We'd lost our way somehow down in Tennessee and the white lines seemed to break me down. We took the long way around and found Huntsville without a glitch. Less than a hundred miles and one right turn, I thought. I braced myself and finished my coffee. Fumbling for the dispo vape in the console. "It's gonna be alright," she said, "they love you "

We'd hit Winfield around noon and my anxiety was on high alert. I asked to stop for lunch at a mom and pop. I'd known the bartender my entire life and I knew she'd slip me some shots in a pinch. She smiled as we came in, a sudden recognition and her arms were around me. Yelling something about a bottle of jack. I shook my head and slid my eyes to the right and the bartender asked to see me out back. We smoked a blunt, downed a shot and looked around.

"I can't believe you're here," she said, "is that your girl?" I nodded without a word. "going home for Christmas," she asked and I nodded mid drawl. She'd rested her head on my shoulder for a moment and I ran my fingers through her hair. "I'm trying," I said.

It was thirty minutes to home. I watched my lives fade into one another. Childhood friends and selfies and it was all too much nostalgia to care about the next leg of the drive.

But we'd hit strunk ridge now and it was a good skip and a jump away from Go Time.

I saw the wreaths in the windows, the scattered flint of falling stars, the Christmas trees flickering through the dark. I felt the gravel of the driveway twist and turn beneath the tires. The crackle brought me back to some rooted youth and perfect soldiers, all in a line.

I'd stepped out first and the front door had opened. I didn't see who was there, I was looking to my left. To the magnolia trees of my youth. They stood just below the Douglas furs. I'd looked out at the pines, a thicket that had grown bare and unseen and then my mother's voice intruded. "We're glad you made it," she said. *Not even behind schedule." I'd smiled and embraced her and motioned to my right.

She'd looked over my companion, with judging eyes. The tattooed hands, the guitar scarred fingers, the slight hint of roots showing through her unnaturally blonde hair. They'd taken hands, in some makeshift shake and I'd lowered my head.

"There are people inside," Mama said, ", you'll take your luggage to your sister's room and she can have the guest room," a simple stammer, "your room, she can have your room."

I cut my eyes and touched her back. I watched her eyes take in my childhood home. This disastrous makeshift of my past. She clenched my hand, a tight yet fleeting grasp and she nodded at me without a word.

October had been hard. November was harder. It was a haze of Hells Bells and broken dreams.

Picket fences fell and heartstrings were frayed. We lost ourselves,

In grief and strength and something people might call courage.

I saw your eyes that night. Angry and Hurt and all I'd done was search the room until yours had met mine. A steady nod.

From you to me.

I shrugged it off

Straightened my spine and dismissed the awkward tension.

Awkward and scared and confused.

It wasn't what we'd planned

Who wanted more awkward goodbyes or backroom fucks?

"You'll figure it out," I thought. Some after thought on a Louisville night.

I looked at her, teary-eyed and desperate to draw me back.

Lucero was playing, when I stepped away.

Two songs before, I was holding a drink. Some Percocet dream of forgetting October and getting through November.

She was holding onto me as the band struck an AC/DC chord.

Tear stained eyes and too much regret,

I shrugged her away.

She'd missed the moment, I thought.

and I had ran to you. As if all could be forgiven. Forgiven because you understood the guilt inside of me.

Because you accepted that October had been hard, that it had splintered off inside of me.

Like a boomerang of helplessness and defeat.

She was searching for me through the crowd and I was pleading with the disgust in your eyes.

The stage door closed and I was alone in my madness.

I ordered a Woodford, double shot, and I doubled down.

Louisville suddenly seemed messy and too far from home. Too far from that guitar shaped Tombstone, in that family plot...too far from the numbing ache in my ribs

And too close to forget.

So a threw another back and walked out alone.

Just me and A Jefferson County skyline.

A rattled mind and reefer in my hand.

I was coming up around Louisville

Wired out and wired up.

Just myself and I and a fragmented Mind.

I-65 looked cold and lonely,

Grey and barren,

Lost travelers fading in and out of sight

Evanescing dreamers perhaps

Losing their way in the

Staggered, illumination of tail lights

And the blinding reflections of exits untaken.

I let myself drift off into the interstate sounds,

Engines revving and purring

And the soft steady sounds of a Carolina boy

Seeping in and out of an amped up stereo.

I lit a smoke and gave in to the fuckery of my brain.

I could feel State Jail 84f approaching.

A mechanical mess of sabotage and fear.

I'd caught the white line fever and

I'd ran.

Ran away from things I loved,

From things I hated...

But most of all, I was running from me.

I'd Monsterflipped in some suburb in Franklin.

Sat down on the sidewalk and watched the stars fall out of the sky.

It was like an astral shower of everything that was wrong and everything that was right in my world.

It all rained down around me.

There were moments of amusement and moments of pain

And there were moments that I wished you were beside me.

So distant now

That it's hard to remember.

Four hours and a lifetime ago, I think.

The amphetamine dilemma solved itself

And I headed out.

Or headed home or something akin to home.

There was this farm out in Jefferson.

Roads and fields I'd known in my youth.

I was looking for safety and shelter and

The me before the Moloko Plus had taken hold.

I'd taken the turns without knowing

Right, right, left.

Dilated eyes fighting with the chaos within.

I reached for for the pipe,

Just to take off the edge

I was still choked on the bud

When my high beams hit the drive.

That wrap around porch,

The hangar to to the the left.

I could smell the rolled hay

Dancing in and out of my Nashville green

I fell back. Smooth leather embraced me.

And suddenly...it didn't matter where I'd been, it didn't matter what I'd done...

It didn't matter who I was now.

I was suddenly Junior League dreams and English jumpers.

Just a fading photograph of a life once lived.

I timed out in Chattanooga, with an amphetamine high and a sinister look. She looked down and all around until her eyes met mine.

There was a smile on her lips and I watched it turn. Something like disgust or anger or hurt.

I wasn't saving myself this time, I thought.

I thought I was saving her.

"I was there, you know?" I let the sounds of Van Morrison cut out the words. I drifted off and around...to happier times. "In that bathroom stall," she said. I heard her words cut through my veins like a Black Tar Down.

She reached for my hand and I pulled away. Serpentine and smooth.

I moved back...away from the comfort of her touch.

One step.

Two steps

Three steps.

"Run!" I thought...

But...I was frozen. Something in her eyes. Her brown eyes had grown black and bleak.

Maybe it was frustration, maybe it was me?

I dipped my head And tried to leave. Her hand caught my shoulder as I turned away. There was a pleading in her voice. Something gutteral and raw.

I wanted to stop. I wanted to fall into her, I wanted to let her love me. Fading thoughts, I whispered, in a fading mind.

I muttered something as I heard her cry. Like a bullet ricocheting through a brittle skull, hitting brittle bones.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

She called my name, one last time.

I looked back, just once, and saw her lonely and defeated. I shook my head as the elevator dinged.

I heard her door snap shut. It wasn't an angry slam or a dramatic end.

It was just me saving her from myself.