Tommy Womack
Nobody ever says
man I’m living in the best days of my life
and I’ll enjoy it
if I know what’s good for me.
Happiness is something remembered.
Like watching the blue jay out the window at six in the morning after a gig,
with REM on the stereo,
smoking the last cigarette in your girlfriend’s pack.
And you think you’re in Dullsville Ohio.
Nothing awesome happens here.
Open your chest and breathe in the dull.
Suck it in like the iced cherries that killed Zachary Taylor.
Nobody ever says hey I just fell in love with you five minutes ago.
You say it coming out of the bathroom and back to the keg.
Six months later.
You say it at Jr. Foods
buying your girlfriend another pack before she wakes up.
You say it underneath the water tower.
Toking behind Picasso’s.
Looking for something at the mall that you lost on Lovers Lane.
There are many reasons to live at the car wash,
whacking seat cushions with a leaky vacuum wand for minimum wage.
As many as there are deep inside London Calling.
Or in Henry Cherry’s eyes.
Princes walked here back then.
And we didn’t know we were kids.
We never said it’ll never get better than this.
Nobody says take a picture because I won’t be this young in thirty minutes.
They say find your own apartment because this thing with Michelle is getting serious.
Someday, everything gets serious.
Nobody says I see it coming.
They say a pack of Virginia Slims please,
happier than they know.
