many years ago in a smoky bar,
The Crossroads,
I was lectured about life.
a half-drunken man told me to go
back to Nashville, told me God
told him to tell me.
and then he said this:
something I’ve heard
many times since,
not sure if it’s a blessing or a curse?
“things will get worse before they get better.”
I never went back to Nashville
and things got worse,
wound up living in a shit-hole town
where they’d just as well shoot you
then give you the time of day.
I was given 18 years for
gross copulation
but escaped with my greatest treasure.
believe them when they say
life can be hard, it’s true.
there’s always something,
a cog in the wheel,
a joker in the deck,
cancer.
but believe me when I say
you can achieve what you dream.
hell, I might even go back
to Nashville.
things get better, it’s true
but you really have to want it,
to work for it, to grind it out every day.
grind it out every fucking day.