Nineteen, Heading Down

What can I say?

I’m nineteen and running down

Got held up

After sixteen

And couldn’t get
Down or out

After that

3:37am on a Monday morning

And the weekend

Wouldn’t let me go

Valentine’s Day candy

That I bought at the drugstore

The one open all night

Down the street

When we moved in here

I thought we were really special

Because we were down the street

From an all-night drugstore

And a KFC
And a McDonald’s

I felt like we were city livin’

Finally getting ourselves somewhere

And now we gotta go somewhere else

Me back to my folks

You back to Georgia

Trying to say this is going to last

And both of us already know

It’s winding down

Weird to be nineteen
Wrapped in a blanket

Sitting on a couch

At all hours of the night

Wondering when death’s going to come for you

Because you know it’s coming soon

Not because you’re sick

Or hurt

Or you’re going to do

Anything to yourself

Just because you’re tired

And you can’t be this tired

For this long

Without something

Shutting down

Without something
Giving up

Neither one of us

Can keep being tired

ANd neither one of us

Is old enough

To have nothing left in us

We should have our whole lives

We should have stuff to give

Not just garbage

And clever ideas

And plans for things

We can’t follow through on

But actual, real stuff

Stuff we can be proud of, you know?

If you add up every year of my life

All I have a is a handful of things

I can be proud of

You--I can be proud of you

And a few other things

And that’s it

The rest is just nineteen pieces

Of broken glass

That don’t fit together

Even if you had the glue

And the time

To fix whatever it was

Before it was broken

I know you’re going to bed

And you can

You can sleep

You can rest

It doesn’t matter

Nothing’s going to happen tonight

We’re not special people

And right now--

This 3am hour

This is a special hour

It’s an hour when special people die

Not people like us

So I’ll just keep heading down

Until it’s daylight

And maybe then something will happen

Or maybe it won’t

But I know it won’t be long

I don’t have twenty in me

I know that

That’s one thing
I know

For sure