Monday, July 9, 2012

Red Hill


In the dim light of Red Hill restaurant
I scratch the bug bites on my ankles
My skin indented from all the worrying I’ve done to them
I say to my brother, Isn’t it strange?
How things just don’t happen the way you think they’re going to?
And he laughs behind the candle in the mason jar
He laughs behind his glasses
Yes, dude, he says
Believe me, I know just what you mean

We aren’t old
We are young
And yet it feels like time is running out
I was supposed to be Fiona Apple by now
Wasn’t I?
He was supposed to be a famous director
But really
We are just ourselves
Roughed up a bit
Lazy patches of pain floating around us
From all the shit that’s gone down
since we moved to this desert of a city
Our father
who still works at 77,
who still goes to the office every day
Taught us to push and fight
To make something of ourselves
And the truth is we might
But there’s just as good of a chance that we won’t

So I pay my half of the check
With money I made teaching piano lessons
He slides the rest of his beer down his throat
Standing up and pulling his hoodie around his shoulders
We wander out to his car in the parking lot
To a soundtrack of cars and the sun hissing out of the sky

And the most likely outcome
Is that we will have moments of joy amid long stretches of monotony
Like everyone else
And it won’t be what we hoped
But somehow it will turn out to be exactly
what we needed

1 comment: