“You’re a love disaster,
your heart beats faster,
when it’s with mine.”

She’s not sure she can do it anymore, though she’s not quite sure she can do without it. Without this. Without him.

The bus leaves the station, or really its more like take-off’s and landings, but they still like to play at the notion of what “going on tour” entails. She stays behind, pretending not to miss him, playing at the life she’s supposed to be living, some resemblance of normalcy that she made-up a few years ago, a paper house of cards ready to cave in on itself. She tells herself she doesn’t miss him, that she doesn’t daydream what it would be like to throw a few things in a bag and follow along.

He plays the songs she loves the most, texting her the set-lists with another I miss you at the end. They are all ex’s and oh’s right now, though their own ex’s are not even close to being done. She tries not to wonder if she’s with him, tries to ignore the ring on his finger in the photo from a mid-afternoon radio show. What does it really matter anyway, she doesn’t wear one at all, the consequence of so many things she can’t even name anymore. The absence on her left hand says nothing about the left side of the bed she still shares, even if she clings now to the farthest right side, closing her eyes so tightly she sees stars, wishing she could disappear into the great nothing, feel nothing, become nothing but ether and last lines of a song.

She can hardly breathe when he’s gone, always half holding her breath waiting for the calls to stop coming, for the silence to move in like early morning fog, for the beat of her heart to stop depending on a blue light on her phone. It all feels so much better when they are in the same time zone, sharing the same smoggy skies, in touching distance.

She should end it before it ends her.

Maybe she’s nothing but a passing flavor, a muse for the next five tracks nearly ready to lay down, another likely story of band-aids and life-preservers and stupid girls addicted to boys with guitars. Each string is her kryptonite, every chord another fatal blow. Someday they will write cautionary tales about her latest disaster. Just call her a catastrophe, another line to blur, a wide-eyed fever dream of love.

She’s not so sure she can do it any longer. But she’s not sure she can do without it. Without this. Without the two of them.

Mescaline (live) :: Robert Francis