![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I Will Carry You Home In My Teeth
Jun. 20th, 2005 09:22 amWhen i am too drunk to write, that is the night I am too drunk indeed. When I see John Darnielle, when he stands up on the stage and yells out his proclamations of life, it makes me want to stop writing unless it's in praise of him. The way he sings takes me by the hand and pulls me down, down to where I'm drowning in whiskey, down to the point where'd I'd give anything to taste salt between my teeth. The words that emerge winnow out my core and leave nothing but the hollow where sound resides. Every song a life of words that I cling too, trying desperately to feed myself on desperation.
Your message (oh God, his message, his message, this to-a-certain-person shit has got to stop before you lose the ability to live and by you I mean I and by you I mean he) came so muffled, garbled in a drunken joke. You are awkward, you know the hurt that came. I am a social gaffe, and you avoid me to not remember the time you tripped and fell into a bed. The whole world is coming, and you still need a place to live, someplace to not call home. I have prepared a place for you, but the place is something I built for someone else, and although you found a key the property is sold to another higher bitter. You are awkward, you know the hurt that came. He is drunk, but he turns into a soothsayer, soothing with the things he says, in between the exclamations and fuck motherfucker we're too drunk too talk, too drunk to say anything except exclaim. We grasp each other so tightly as to draw the others breath, but when I let go it's with a middle finger pointed squarely up. I lay on the couch, he counsels. I say I need someone to live with, he tells me he knows a person, and we play the charade so truely until I know what's goin' on, what's goin' on, and my smile tastes different. Ha-ha, we laugh, we share a smile, I say something mean, I'm only angry because I care, and is she really still going out with him (with you)? And I'm glad tomorrow repeats itself. I want to get drunk in a public place, I tell him, this is something I've never done before. Things I've never done before are showing up fewer and farther between. He disagrees and I correct. No, the bars aren't public. Did you see any windows? These are private places. Tonight, let's get a bottle, let's wrap it in a paper bag and I'll send it sweet down my throat. I see us sitting on a curb, outside a park. I see us at the show, throwing fists in the air and swearing the words to whomever is within hearing distance. I feel the cold of the cup between my hands, the warmth of the bodies pressed up to my back, the sound of the guitar thumping out a beat that we all fall into. We smile and grin at each other in lecherous meaningless ways. I am drunk, he is stoned, and the boy beside me stands so close that my hand grazes his ass one time too often and vice versa and I still don't care.
At the bar, I'm sitting with two boys whose conversations about me hinge on scandelous terms. They are held together by four screws and a flexible joint. One has a girlfriend now, and I realize as we order another round that I, myself, and me are all threatening to her. The way she smiles, the way she looks away. He talks about the old days, trying to get me drunk, and I act demure as he explains the teetotaling, blushing, looking down, remembering the mornings I woke up in their house and made breakfast, padding down the hallway to turn on the stove, rinsing out the beer from last nights cups and hanging up dishtowels to dry. I am nothing if not second string, except maybe third string, but so help me John I am always there, and he is always there, and together we cling like rats and barnacles and things on ships that sink. We get drink after drink and drink, and who's fit to drive, not I, said the fish. But the boys are there, and they stare, and they are warm and smell like boy and I can lean to my heart's content and they'll never move away. So they take the keys and take the wheel and I steer them to my house.
I try to get him to stay, tug at his arm, pull on his sleeve, twist his leg. He knows his bed will be cold and he will be alone and as much as I share this with him I use it against him in hopes of cementing his feet to this side of town. I explain the pillows, the breakfast, the me, but none of it is enough to keep him here. So we stand with the others and get more drunk. I hope to render him unable to drive, but it turns against me and turns my words into dust in my mouth so all I spit at his retreating back is idle dirt.The moon hanging low in the sky, the clouds drifting gray outside the porch, the circle of people with bottles in their hands and lust in their hearts. There is always tomorrow night, there is always more innuendo and talk to toss back and forth in a drunken loving haze. This is simple, how we are.
Your message (oh God, his message, his message, this to-a-certain-person shit has got to stop before you lose the ability to live and by you I mean I and by you I mean he) came so muffled, garbled in a drunken joke. You are awkward, you know the hurt that came. I am a social gaffe, and you avoid me to not remember the time you tripped and fell into a bed. The whole world is coming, and you still need a place to live, someplace to not call home. I have prepared a place for you, but the place is something I built for someone else, and although you found a key the property is sold to another higher bitter. You are awkward, you know the hurt that came. He is drunk, but he turns into a soothsayer, soothing with the things he says, in between the exclamations and fuck motherfucker we're too drunk too talk, too drunk to say anything except exclaim. We grasp each other so tightly as to draw the others breath, but when I let go it's with a middle finger pointed squarely up. I lay on the couch, he counsels. I say I need someone to live with, he tells me he knows a person, and we play the charade so truely until I know what's goin' on, what's goin' on, and my smile tastes different. Ha-ha, we laugh, we share a smile, I say something mean, I'm only angry because I care, and is she really still going out with him (with you)? And I'm glad tomorrow repeats itself. I want to get drunk in a public place, I tell him, this is something I've never done before. Things I've never done before are showing up fewer and farther between. He disagrees and I correct. No, the bars aren't public. Did you see any windows? These are private places. Tonight, let's get a bottle, let's wrap it in a paper bag and I'll send it sweet down my throat. I see us sitting on a curb, outside a park. I see us at the show, throwing fists in the air and swearing the words to whomever is within hearing distance. I feel the cold of the cup between my hands, the warmth of the bodies pressed up to my back, the sound of the guitar thumping out a beat that we all fall into. We smile and grin at each other in lecherous meaningless ways. I am drunk, he is stoned, and the boy beside me stands so close that my hand grazes his ass one time too often and vice versa and I still don't care.
At the bar, I'm sitting with two boys whose conversations about me hinge on scandelous terms. They are held together by four screws and a flexible joint. One has a girlfriend now, and I realize as we order another round that I, myself, and me are all threatening to her. The way she smiles, the way she looks away. He talks about the old days, trying to get me drunk, and I act demure as he explains the teetotaling, blushing, looking down, remembering the mornings I woke up in their house and made breakfast, padding down the hallway to turn on the stove, rinsing out the beer from last nights cups and hanging up dishtowels to dry. I am nothing if not second string, except maybe third string, but so help me John I am always there, and he is always there, and together we cling like rats and barnacles and things on ships that sink. We get drink after drink and drink, and who's fit to drive, not I, said the fish. But the boys are there, and they stare, and they are warm and smell like boy and I can lean to my heart's content and they'll never move away. So they take the keys and take the wheel and I steer them to my house.
I try to get him to stay, tug at his arm, pull on his sleeve, twist his leg. He knows his bed will be cold and he will be alone and as much as I share this with him I use it against him in hopes of cementing his feet to this side of town. I explain the pillows, the breakfast, the me, but none of it is enough to keep him here. So we stand with the others and get more drunk. I hope to render him unable to drive, but it turns against me and turns my words into dust in my mouth so all I spit at his retreating back is idle dirt.The moon hanging low in the sky, the clouds drifting gray outside the porch, the circle of people with bottles in their hands and lust in their hearts. There is always tomorrow night, there is always more innuendo and talk to toss back and forth in a drunken loving haze. This is simple, how we are.
