The Ritual of the Habit

In moments of brutal honesty i know i've come closer to her than i'd ever like to admit, but i know she's there, calling and smiling and vowing to take me to bed, i've done more than just flirt, hell i've dressed her up and taken her out, swanky dinners and clubs that play good music, smiles and conversation, it's more than just cigarettes and booze and powders and pills, sometimes it's the action of the track or the pub, the call of the streets and shady deals and the invisible hand of the law we hope to never shake...

in the old days it might've been a plate full of powder or a cramped, hot room and space dust, there's been late afternoons spent nodding off to the Dirty Three with a mattress on the floor and a breeze through second hand, dusty drapes, there was Santeria and baking soda and spoons and ice cubes and packs of matches, yes i've done more than flirt and sometimes i wonder if i'm not a magnificent fuck or an even more magnificent fuck-up, staring down the end of four decades and still waking up in the morning and knocking the demons from my head, telling them to fuck off today and leave me in peace and it seems to never really go away...

that call to easy money and action, those little pills that make the world soft and fuzzy and then one morning you wake up and the stomach turns and the body aches and you realize that the razor's edge is sharp and that standing on it in bare feet is not easy and you can sense the blood that roles down it but you either pretend it's not yours or end up looking in the mirror at that magnificent fuck-up and the smile of ten or fifteen years ago is not so easy and the sound of little feet pattering down the stairs makes you understand that those demons need to be buried, iced, snuffed if for nothing else than the two sets of eyes that always watch you with wide-eyed joy and love...

and it's those little eyes that look much like my own that help me ignore the sirens call, maybe not all the time, but they help, help me remember that roughly 4 years ago things turned for the better for this fucked-up man of the streets, those little eyes have helped me tell the demons to fuck off on a more regular basis but they're still there, they know me to well, know how i like to dance and flirt, they know how i love the ritual of the habit and the rush of blood...

yes, the magnificent fuck-up, liver in the toilet and runny nose, twisted guts and nicotine stained hands shaking with fury and withdrawal, someday the fuck up will be put to bed and the man will stand and explain to his sons that though he may have one or two redeeming qualities he is not someone to emulate, he'll point them in the right direction, he'll tell them he never understood love until he saw them, he'll lie a bit and say he can barely remember the world without them but he'll always hear that song and her laughter, the neon lights and smokey rooms...