Born To Run

Tired of making things up, I tell you something real about myself which you dismiss because my real bits can be tough to take. I light a cigarette and think about all the things I’ve wanted to say for so long but could never quite find the words so silence was key and darkness was comfort. Do you ever dream about the day you can finally come clean about the way you feel inside? Do you ever chew your fingernails while worrying that it will be too late in the end, when the wind and the rain and the sky come closing in on you and death doles out his inevitable fate? So little time and so much to say. So many mouths and so many empty promises swimming inside the churning sea of our complicated souls. I refuse labels but since you seem hell bent on putting me in a nice tight box I tell you I am a sensualist, which seems to both satisfy and frustrate you because you think I’m being coy. The truth is I don’t have the energy to be anything but honest which is likely what gets me into tricky situations I then find difficult to wiggle out of, though somehow I always do. Taking a drag, I lean back in my chair and spread my legs a little too wide. You raise an eyebrow as I breathe clouds of smoke into the dead air between us and stare at you straight. Open your mind and let me in. Open your doors and let’s fly away to a place where they can’t touch us, soar higher until they can no longer claw us down. Can’t you see I want to run away from all the things they promised would keep me safe from harm. Can’t you see the flash of hunger in my eyes when I ask you what you see when you look deep inside those secret places you keep hidden from everyone else. I want to taste every last drop of this life on my tongue. I know they don’t understand you and I know it hurts. You dance for them. You jerk them off to the self-righteous hymns of the religion they shoved down your throat and you hate yourself for it but alas here we are. You’re no better today than you were last week and I’m none the wiser but I still believe I could show you things you’ve never seen. Out the small window littered with tiny potted plants, the horizon begins to blush as the sun’s coming up. Another day, another chance to forgive and forget and throw it all behind you once and for all. But you and I both know you won’t run, and if you can’t run you can’t fly. We are alone when we are together and together when we part but somehow the agony sticks in your teeth. Behind me I feel your hand on my shoulder. I hear the indifference as you turn on your heels, and leave.