so someone you knew once is back in town, so to speak. it’s been awhile. you’ve talked a little bit, here and there. before that, things were really amazing and wonderful, and then for a while they got, frankly, shitty. on both sides, but probably mainly it was your own damn fault in the end. so you’re talking a little bit more here, and a little bit more there. and then… a breakthrough. things feel just right. just like the good times way back when, only with a better beat or more melody or something. and you go from a few minutes here to a half hour there, and then the breakthrough brings back one sweet conversation that lasts longer than the industrial revolution. just like before, when things were so fine. a breakthrough. no stress, no strain… just good talk. laughter. a little bit of memories. a hint of sadness in the poetic guise of nostalgia; just a bit of sentimentality to shade things a little, yet not throw them out of whack again.
and the day after your breakthrough, you just can’t say anything right at all. not a thing. no, wait. it starts out fine enough, but somehow you just say the wrong thing entirely, or maybe it’s just the timing of your delivery. but it happens, and you didn’t mean it to; it did anyway. you can’t believe how quickly things turn into… the bad part of the old times. just like it, in fact. not the really traumatic part that it took you two months just to get over, but the little bad times. the ones where you sobered up the next day and felt bad about it and eventually things worked out somehow.
but you were nowhere near drunk this time around. you’re just that fucking clumsy with words.
you can’t help yourself. you mean well, you really do. but sometimes meaning well ain’t worth a damned thing. the road to hell, as they say…
sometimes it’s just so easy to give in and really believe that nothing is ever gonna get any better… that things like breakthroughs are just a little ray of sunshine for a moment before your boat capsizes in the storm that you forgot about for too long. that life is never gonna hand you your fair bag of beans just because you feel that you might deserve it some of the time.
so you go to bed, wet-eyed and weary, knowing that tomorrow brings new things, new changes… new bills to somehow pay, maybe another form rejection letter or two. no doubt more bad news of some sort. you’re getting a little too accustomed to these things, you think. maybe something will give, you don’t know. but right now you think you’re just gonna have to bend like a reed in the wind some more until you snap in half and float away, away….
