Tuesday, July 5, 2011

honkeytonk heart

It's the possibility of what lies in the kiss. The hope in it, that the chance is there. It's the pressure that it isn't. That all that chance is gone, with one simple kiss. Years I've spent with the hope of something bigger, something story book true, just waiting for me. I'll find it one day. Everything will change for me. The pressure of knowing it is already inside and I need to change it myself first. It won't come to you in a bottle or a sad song. It won't come from another warm body. But it's safe to stay down, staring up at the stars, laying on my back where I've landed so many times before. So I'll stay down here and just reach up and dream.

I build it up. Dreams at night, all day long. I can see what I want out of life and where I'd like to be. I know what I want and I know how to make myself happy, when my day ends, excited for the next. So I build my selfish fantasy up, make it better every time. There is only one thing I never see and that's who it's with. Am I destined to go it alone? I will never have the courage for that. Afraid to be alone, lonely. Where my mind goes when I'm there. How little value things seem to have there. So I continue to reach. After all, it's only the inevitable fall that hurts. When I'm down on my back again, I'll have the whiskey, the sad songs, the warm body to lay with and destract me while I reach up.

Every once in a while, I see somebody enter a room, almost glowing. In a crowded room, my eyes will just gravitate that way. Right to her. So I build it up. My day dream answer. I watch her eyes, her mouth, hang on every word, learning all I can. Trying to figure out if it is indeed her. That image next to me I never see. I listen, I learn. Maybe it is. With every word uttered from her beautiful lips, my selfish fantasy gets closer to reality. Falling back up to the stars I reach for.

But I'm a silly old man, stuck in his selfish day dreams. The closer I get, the more I hope her happiness. Not from me. I've tried, fallen, too many times. Reaching for the comfort in my old friends, the bottle, sad songs and another warm body. Comfort in the loneliness I've found so often. Hope she finds a true one. No more hurt in her eyes. I've seen it several times before. My broken old honkytonk heart, breaks another. I never want to look into the beautiful tear filled eyes of the broken hearted girl in front of me again, so a reach turns to a push.

So I think of the kiss and how it could take away from me the chance, the hope, that the girl who is out there, is standing in front of me, while knowing she isn't. I hang to the hope of that kiss, for her to be happy and for to never have tears in those beautiful eyes. I'd love to see the smile that has made me feel lighter, from behind that kiss as I sit across the room, behind the bar and day dreaming.