Lyric Prompt: You are the Reason

You are the reason

There goes my heart beating

'Cause you are the reason

I'm losing my sleep

Please come back now

I think about you. I dream about you. I wonder if you stay awake like me too. 

On those long nights after a soulful cry, I wonder; Do you care?

I wait by the phone, waiting for the call, a call, ANY call, telling me you changed your mind. 

It hurts; the wait. 

And there goes my mind racing

And you are the reason

That I'm still breathing

I'm hopeless now

I can’t stop thinking, I’m breaking apart. I cry at a song, at a drop of a hat.

I came across the portrait from happier times and sat in the middle of the floor letting everything out.

The music played so loud, no one heard me. 

Tonight I wasn’t lucky, I started crying over a pork chop glaze. 

I couldn’t help the body-wracking sobs or the tears that trailed unchecked. 

I’m hopeless now. 

I'd climb every mountain

And swim every ocean

Just to be with you

And fix what I've broken

Oh, 'cause I need you to see

That you are the reason

I did so much to try and stay, I tried so hard to be okay. But crying in the bathroom or out in my car, trying to hide the hurt you caused by not causing a scene. I bit my tongue and let you lash out. 

Why now? You might ask, why would I bring this up now.

Because I thought you’d get better.

Hopeful thinking, I know. 

I thought things would change, they did, but not for the better; things got unbearable. 

You are the reason...

I thought, you out of everyone in my life, knew that a lifetime of abuse can shape a soul. You out of everyone should have known that it took every ounce inside me, to say something.

To say, anything. 

There goes my hands shaking

And you are the reason

My heart keeps bleeding

I need you now

The night you showed up, my last ounce of dignity that I held, shattered. It ran off the moment I opened that door and saw a pair of eyes who used to, simply, love me.

Did you ever? 

Do you now?

Those eyes weren't yours, they were vengeful. 

What I feel is abandonment, and this is not what a 32-year-old should feel like. I shouldn’t feel like I'm an adolescent, I shouldn't feel like that helpless kid starved for her parents attention. 

I need you now....

More than ever, but you\"re holding on to your blind ignorance to see I'm here, wanting you.

And if I could turn back the clock

I'd make sure the light defeated the dark

I'd spend every hour, of every day

Keeping you safe

I'm not strong enough to carry you, I never was, I was and still am a kid. I'm stuck feeling out of whack, off kilter and not always there. I get lost in memories, in a swirl of change that took my mother from me. 

I want what little relationship we had....back. Even though that wasn't great either, but you were still human.

Fucking up and admitting you weren't perfect. So what happened to that mom? I'll take the perfectly imperfect, broken, raw, pain in my ass every day of the week....

What I won\"t settle for is the shell of the woman you used to be. Bitterness changed you, and I couldn't save you.

No matter how hard I tried, I could never even save myself.

I couldn't keep you safe.

I don't wanna fight no more

I don't wanna hide no more

I don't wanna cry no more

Come back I need you to hold me (you are the reason)

Be a little closer now

Just a little closer now

Come a little closer

I need you to hold me tonight

Can you see?

This isn't what I wanted.

I wanted my family back.

The fucked up beautiful mess.

The gypsy souls, the vagabonds, the sinners who were saints and a family I was more than ‘okay’ with...

I don't want what we used to be, these barely hanging on to sanity humans, that\"s why I'm fighting.

That\"s why I've gone dark, and silent, and incommunicado...

I've gone through the court, the police, and domestic violence personnel to prove to you I'm not going to back down.

Last year was my darkest point, I needed that to get through this. 

What I needed from you, was as simple as showing up...

I needed you to hold me....

I needed you to not talk behind my back...

Or for it to get back to me. 

Ignorance is bliss, but so is letting go of over a decades worth of sweeping me under the run...

Sweeping all of it under the rug.

Aren't you tired? 

I sure as fuck am.

I'm tired of crying, of wondering, of racing the clock that are your lives, of wondering if the ‘call’ I'm waiting for is of one of you passing. 

And that because you wanted to hide your bullshit, instead of owning up to your part, that you chose to hide, instead of joining me in the light.

Of choosing to die instead of telling me, one last time that you do love me. 

That it has all been in my head. 

That you want to try, to renew my hope on family...

I've been in the dark too long...

Haven't you? 

The Freeway Portajohn

This is to the lone, freeway, intercity speghetti bowl, portable bathroom that centers itself under an overpass in our ever growing city.

It’s location, questionable, but understandable since the minor construction going on above it leaves to wuestion: where do I go from here? It’s location a simple mystery, it’s main location being that of random placement to us city folk, but makes sense for the driver who dropped it. There simply was no other space available. 

Knowing, intimately, how my townsfolk drive, it sits precariously too close to the sibling off ramp of yet another off ramp. It’s a short jumbled mess for the out of Towners but it makes sense to the locals. 

When it rains, we instinctively know that somehow, someone has managed to completely bulldoze a lamp post off the connecting off/on ramp that heads north through town. 

It’s a constant thing, therefore no one reports it on the news, because I’m pretty sure it would end up a tally system quite similar to that of our downtown bridge that takes out many a truck top, peeling it like a sardine can.

which makes me question this lone little porta potty and the brave soul who needs to actually use it. 

How desperate must you be, or what death wish might you have, to use it for number two? Do you make quick work? Do you think of a way to do your deed elsewhere instead of having to tempt the fates? 

Too many movies about untimely, awful deaths, make me think of the untimely death and the humiliation of someone who just needed to use the loo and end up punted across a freeway covered in everyone’s…

leftovers. 

WP: They're Behaving Suspiciously

 Upon walking into the bustling New Orleans bistro, ones eyes could swing around the open floor plan, from the high plank ceiling to the floor tiles below. You took in the vintage area as a whole; the young crowd, the French-quarter décor a hearty mix of wrought iron and yesteryears Marti Gras beads, the hurried servers speaking in a mix of French and English, and the air that hung resplendent with creole seasoning, fresh baked beignets, and something else you couldn't quite put a finger on. 
The air hung hot and heavy with humidity around your shoulder like a drunk lover vying for attention, you couldn't ignore it or shrug it off, just like everything else this magical place had to offer.

Either way, the smells hung heavier like lāvǒur curtains coming to rest in pools of Frothy chiffon, like those hung in each tall open window. It persuaded you like curling fingers, begging you to sample absolutely everything the menu tempted and promised, because its promise was sinful to the senses and promised culinary redemption in the form of fresh homemade beignets, dusted generously with powdered sugar.

However… there was something about the shabby chic riverside haunt that brought a faint prickle to the back of the neck. 

 

Tonight’s special touted a homemade Andouille Sausage Jambalaya, fresh ingredients and from scratch sausage which is a feat to make, especially for a Friday night crowd such as this one. 

Servers seemed to dance as table after table ordered the Special, and after each order, a chant went up from the servers until it was something mysterious that no one else was privy too, but infectious just the same. The crowd grew to expect it, and in that time, they started joining in until it became a game, a want, a need, to respond back. 
As more tables ordered the special, they chanted along until it was the only menu item being brought out and passed around in such joyous manners.

As the chants grew louder, the cooks in the back swayed with each religious cue, cooking up order after order of pleasantly pungent stew. No one realized they were behaving suspiciously, no patron, no stranger; except the cook in the far back. Stuck on sausage grinding duty, she stuffed the natural casings with the odd mixture she was grinding up blindly and when the grinder got caught, she took pause to clean out the intake.
Dipping her finger inside she found the cause, a hard piece she had to pry out. It took a few quick tugs to free, until she came to stare at what was noticeably familiar.

Just one, notable, human index finger.

She slowly looked up and the rest of the kitchen began to come back into focus, the finger held firmly between her own index and her thumb. The back and forth of the kitchen staff too the walk in cooler, the hoot and holler of hurried French in demand of items to be cooked, and the realization of the situation slowly creeping up her spine until she dropped the finger back into the bowl of already done sausage; yet to be tied and cut of course.

She licked her suddenly too dry lips and stumbled backwards as her head snapped up to the head cook who stood in the door asking if she were done, eyes sharp and intent on her. She shot a look down into the bowl as the cook followed, they stood in silence, as much as one could in a busy kitchen.
When their eyes connected again, he tisked and whispered, in loud, deep timbered Cajun French.
"C'est Dommage."

Something about Shame.
Her brain was quick to note the gleam in the cooks eye, noticed the chef knife in his hand as she ripped the apron from her person and tossed it as hard as she could at the cook as he made the step around her work table toward her. With a panicked screech, she ran out of the back screened door and as far as she could without looking back. 

The chef looked down at the apron she tossed then came to the back door, catching it before it slapped against the wood and held it while he looked longingly out. With a soft curse, he turned and looked back into the kitchen.
Walking back to the bowl of sausage, he plucked the finger out and examined it before tossing it back in the bowl and lifted the bowl up and took it to the kitchen with him.

Once upon the Sous Chef, he tossed the bowl in front of him, mid plating and with a loud metallic clunk and clattered, the younger chef turned and gave him a glare and threw his hands up.
"What is this?" He yelled, with deeply French accented English.
"You cost us the new girl with your silly prank." The head chef spat, hand coming out to wave at the bowl in question.
"I did no such thing, not on a Friday night." He yelled back, mild confusion popping up on his face as he glanced down at the bowl again. 

"Then what is that?"

They both stood and stared down at the finger, when they both looked up at each other again they swallowed hard and looked around as a dance of plates full of the house special left the kitchen, and plates licked clean came back in steady droves. 

"Merde."