Friday 6 April 2012

Pretty Boy Floyd.

So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have you found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here.
When I said hello he started singing and he sang the whole thing before hanging up. I was in the vestibule of an expensive restaurant and there was no free place to sit down and I wanted to go and stand behind the curtains and hide but it would have been weird so I walked outside and people fell all over themselves getting the doors open for me or I probably would have walked right into them.

I continued down the sidewalk in my too-cold dress for the weather and too-high shoes for a stroll until Ben caught up with me and tucked my arm through his and held it with his right hand and turned me, walking me back down the street until we reached the restaurant where everyone was still seated inside, oblivious to my escape. He turned me to face him and bent his head down, kissing my philtrum and scraping my nose with his fledgling stubble. He looked into my eyes and smiled a little. Only a little. His eyes weren't in it. It wasn't real.

He doesn't really want to be here either but at the same time as it's necessary, as is a private little break for the two of us right now, just two or so weeks shy of our fourth anniversary, which is some sort of record, since I am such a bad wife but most of the time he doesn't seem to mind.

Until he does.