It started out so nice
This year
This life
My eyes wide with promise
My smile chasing its silver lining
Iris dilating like a magnified black button
Vacant, stupid
But promising

It started out so nice
When my parents tied the knot
Unmatched
Bracing for the windstorm to come
And the pumpkin oval moon
With their seventies corduroys
And their vinyl records
Scratching away at Elvis
In oval loops
Rocking and rolling on the living room carpet
Dying to be in love, madly
But unmatched

It started out so nice
When my sister was born
Cuddly thing
Running around
With her belly button
Wedged between her fingers
And snot running down her face
***** little thing
But cuddly

It started out so nice
On my bike one morning
Sailing on silver morning calm
Slippery
Gears seamless up and down
Leaning with life into hairbend corners
Straightening them out
Parental
And from nowhere a yellow taxi
Oozed from an exit
Greeting me with a thud
And then air
Borne to fly, it seems
Asphalt rushing at my face
Painful
But slippery

It started out so nice
When your lust grabbed my attention
Sickly, but lovingly
By the scruff of the neck
And your eyes threw me to the floor of my shyness
And your lips pried open my stubborn heart
With no regard for your own shame
How you gave me the lesson I needed
Before you tore away to someone else
Taking my throat with you
It was sick
But loving

It started out so nice...

Just before I stumbled into the Sugarman
The voice of the silvery soothing one, the same
The one with the indigenous eyes behind the shades
The one of perpetual expression of peace washing both highboned cheeks
With Big Ben behind him offering the world, the same!
Now hiding his golden smile in a shack of broken leaves and winters ice
Stooping his bent back against the galeforce reserved for the forgotten
Labouring to keep his gentle form afloat
Amidst the calm of his nothingness
Propped up by the skinniness of trembling knees
Sunk into the oversized roominess of his boots
Which plod the same snowbound path every day
In a soundless march to fetch his daily survival
And questions fell about me
Like spilt gruel splashing
And I asked why
And I asked
Why?!

Why you, Sugarman?
Are you really happy in your humility?
Do you still feel the butterflies
On a velvet afternoon?
It sure looks like it
You look just fine in your sea-purple Detroit harmony
I'm not there to share yours
But I'm ok with my dawn
And my sister is ok
My parents are ok
My girl is ok
Im not there to share your dawn
But I'm ok