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my head aches from that time when we leaned across the console and smacked foreheads in an attempt to avoid the awkwardness of not kissing. we've spent years not kissing, not touching. laughing and living and crying in the arms of other lovers. lovers who never knew that i loved you, that i love you. never knowing that there are nights when i lie awake knowing you will always be my future and my past and my present wrapped in a record album that we stained the first time we felt the bass line. the first time i mumbled the wrong lyric and you let it slide. you let me slip on the washboard, the cow bell, the ting, ting, ting of a triangle tapped in the background when cymbals were symbols and you know how i love the harmonica buzzing through my lips. i don't ever dream of your vibrations between my legs. i don't ever wonder if our excitement would drip wet. i don't ever worry that you'll abandon me like all the rest. i know you've purchased season tickets, life time tickets, front row seats to my extraordinary mess. 

so what i meant to say was thank you.

and P.S.

you rock my world

and maybe it's time to live

Headed out to leave it all behind
Escape it all to see what I could find

The man sitting behind me won't stop talking.
To the pregnant girl who lacks a wedding ring.
He can count on one hand how many of his friends are still married.  And he advises her to go garbage picking.  For carriages, cribs, rockers, and all baby things.
"Fuck, you can even reuse diapers if they're only filled with pee"
She's 23. I'm 25.  I feel sorry she's not sitting next to me.  Not that I would have any advice to give.
I just wouldn't say anything.

The pale woman with cellulite knees and sagging cheeks declares that she hates people. 
Then she laughs.  Hot puffs of air forced from cigarette wrinkles.  Her arms, resting on her soft round stomach, rise and fall with each chuckle.  At least it's funny.
At least we're still laughing.

An older gentleman, with a sweat stained undershirt, takes the empty seat next to me.  He tilts to the right, toward his wife, exposing a hairy backside.  He leans on one ass cheek and a warm push of air blows on to my exposed thigh.

One hour and twenty minutes.
They've called 21 numbers.
5 more to go.

The advice man gets up and wishes the pregnant girl luck.
She thanks him.
I start to sigh.
I do this, a lot.  (or so I've been told)  Long, soft exhales.  Expressions of time and life.  It relaxes me, in this DMV, where I can't smoke cigarettes or drink whiskey.
And I can't get up.
I'll lose my circus seat.  

i could stand to be a fixture
in a faded family picture
but i can't see into the sunset
all i know is that you're perfect right now

Sunday started.
She held the newspaper clipping above her head and waved it like a Chinese fan.
"Are you saving this to prove what a wonderful man your Father is?"
Sarcastic and accusatory. 
I could tell she was in a manic mood.  Again. 
It must be the final Sunday of the month.
The article had been clipped from a local paper by her sister.  My aunt had placed it on the front seat of my car while I was sunbathing in her backyard.  Her backyard is the Atlantic Ocean.  She is a multimillionaire.
We can't pay the mortgage.
I stared at her.  The way she trembled with tears and anger and confusion.  The way her lips quivered blue as she expressed guilt.  Narcissistic guilt. Self absorbed sympathies.
Angry, shallow, selfish tears fell from her child-like eyes.
And I stared, silently.
Watching my mother unravel in her one hundred, millionth breakdown.
I watched her, feeling guilty.
Guilty I couldn't pay the mortgage.  Guilty I couldn't save their marriage.  Guilty I failed them as a parent.
I failed them. 
I have never been the mother my parents needed.

i love this song
i love this band

i think i want to go dancing
and take pictures
in the dresses my grandmother wore
while she was being courted
innocently.
there are corners in Asbury Park that make my knees shake
the way the street winds softly from the rainbow wealthy
to the Section 8
where the Merlot and Brie
start tasting like lead and speed
and the ghosts surround me

they are warm and comforting

I remember the 1982 gray Dodge Ram Van, splattered with rust spots and fingerprints.  I remember my butterball legs climbing the mountain step and reigning over the backseat in my special throne.  I could barely see the outside.  I could barely see through the dashboard, but I could see him; in the driver's seat, window down, Black Irish forearm tapping rhythm into the front door.  His thick chocolate hair dancing in the hot summer air.  The August exhale that curled and teased through the only window that went down.  Of course his window was the one that worked.  So it goes, Vonnegut. 
There was Off the Wall, New York, and Excitable Boy.  There were tape cassettes and maybe a few eight-tracks left.   He still smoked then.  Marlboro Reds.  Chain smoked, actually.  One lit butt after the next.  Inhale, exhale, flick, light again. 
Once in awhile, I would catch his ice blue eyes in the rear view mirror.  When they were angry, I looked away. I hid.  I was quiet. 
When they were laughter and love, he would ask me, "What's next?".
My sisters would sigh.
My mother would laugh.
And he always let me choose, though they all knew what I would say.
"River song, Daddy. Play me the River song."
And he did.
No matter how many times we had already heard it.  No matter how much my family wished I would find a new favorite.
And I would scream delight in every word.  Every lyric.  Every sound.
He loved me then.

So it goes, Dad.  So it goes.