Hope in a bitter lie
The banks were steep, the current, strong, and blue and deep that spring along the river. We lived, we loved, we tripped, we sang that long summer of love away, in a Tipi on the ridges. We were so heedless, the lie was spreading throughout the land. But for one moment in time, it seemed that man had fallen in love with his fellow man.
“Peace! Love! Spare change?” we sang on the streets.
The winter came, and those who played for us, and those who happily fed us, suddenly locked their doors. No longer was it LSD and Mary Jane. It was speed, and Angel Dust, and Fourways. “I’ll ball the old man for a few bucks. We are children of the universe, It’ll work. Somebody just put strychnine in the acid, just shake it out.” …
It didn’t work out that long winter along a frozen river. The tipi was cold. A bus ticket at the General Delivery window from her parents asking if she was ready to come home now. Yeah. She was ready.
A kiss, a tear from a window. The song was gone, the lie had lost its Limerence. Now demons and drugs, and sleazy old cities, walls lined with homeless wanderers where the sun rose in the morning, and the ever-present smell of urine and sweat along a forgotten and polluted stream I walked.
“You lived on a commune!?” they ask. “That sounds so cool!”
“Yeah. It was.” I lie
Rusty's Armory 