“I think I regret sharin’ that with you.
Don’t know how to handle it.”
“You know, they rate bridges on a hundred point scale,
and you know how many points the Centennial got?”
“No.”
“Less than four.”
“Shit.”
“Walk the bridge on a rainy day,
and the wind chills as the water sprays,
and the bridge bends and creaks in the weight,
and the mud-murk water rushes beneath,
cresting flood-walls, creeping up towards to baseball stadium,
and the Mississippi current laps at the supports,
and the bridge is nothing but concrete and silver-painted rust.”
“Damn.”
“It’s a pilgrimage over troubled waters,
but you take it because there’s something waiting on the other side.
I feel like I’m fading to black, Tom.”
Tom?
You still there Tom?
I’m tired, damn tired.
I ain’t a fucking brand,
and I ain’t some fucking numbers,
of who reads, of who cares, of who shares
but you give me those numbers,
and I care
too
damn
much.
Watching them fall as I do what a writer does.
We writers, we lie and cheat and push and push and stretch.
I’m tired, damn tired.
I don’t, I don’t want to be writin’ what they’re writin’
I don’t wanna be “objectively good”
I’m done dreamin’ of textbook’s singin’ my praise,
cause they miss, they miss the fucking point
I’m tired of carin’ ‘bout publication,
and sellin’, and sellin’ the goods.
I’d rather be doin’ what a writer does,
writin’ words ‘n pushin’ meanin’.
I wanna be beyond boundary.
Tom?
You still there Tom?
I can’t, I ain’t gonna say it,
but
“I love you like my brother.“
“Same here, Steve, same here.”
and I still, I still, I love Luci.
