Barbara Blue

Back in high school, she and I would go see a local blues singer perform. The singer's name, obviously, was Barbara Blue. No one else ever went with us, and why we even started going to see here I don't quite remember. I wrote this after one of Barbara's shows. Reading it today I feel as though I could have just written it yesterday. I'm not sure if that means I've grown or not, but at least one thing has remained constant.

BARBARA BLUE

I’m so confused. I know,
and you’re so annoyed.
I don’t know.
It’s just that I don’t see the importance of everything that happens.
I want you all to myself.
I am selfish and jealous
and I don’t want the world to find out how wonderful you are and take you from me.
And I didn’t see the use in telling you.
I mean, would you rather be in my head or in my heart?
Now I want to tell you everything.
But I feel like I could talk forever and still not tell you everything I want to tell you,
so I figure, why bother telling you anything in the first place?
But I want you to know.
But I don’t want it to seem forced like it always has before.
I’m not before now.
I don’t know what I am.
It’s like those things we keep inside high black walls,
those things, secrets and facts and dreams and feelings that no one will ever know.
I’m terrified of saying something that could bring down one of those walls and let in the light.
Then I’d be vulnerable. I hate that feeling.

When I’m out with you, I wonder if people see it, the love in my eyes.
I sometimes feel naked or transparent, as if they can see right through me,
as if they know what I feel.
I’m not sure if you see it.
I think you’re too blinded by your own love to see the truth,
that truth which you want to know but cannot ask.
We had so much fun that Wednesday that I should have never left you.
I know it was late
and you had to get up early
and I had to get up early to call you to get up early
and you were tired
and I was tired
but the sky was full of stars.
I got out of my car in my driveway
and finally saw it.
I was sorry then that I didn’t spend the rest of that night with you.
After all that coffee, I know we were both up forever anyway.
It just makes me mad that we could have spent that wonderfully lonely evening together.
Then it began to rain.
But this rain can’t wash away everything.

This life is not just some random occurrence.
I refuse to believe that it is.
I have witnessed too many strange coincidences to find faith in accidents.
And then, just as the band starts to play and I think I hold all the cards,
a rock from a balcony strikes my head as I sip my Shirley Temple
and I cannot scream (or I am not heard),
and then they are upon me.