We both had enough of the poison Springtime
So you picked me up, and you started driving.
               The street's Westbound,
                rain and wipers pound.
We can be reborn if we can just depart
                             our town.

Race away--
                  --like we'd set fire to Bon-Ton
Lose a day...
                   ...take 84 past the county line.
               Let the rain keep time on the sunroof
                                  'til we're fine.

                              Do they ever feel it?
                                --Someone does!
                          The grinding. Rewinding,
                                hit play to repeat
                                          and then
                                          get paid.

                                        The payoff?
                                      You'll stave off
                          14 lies from their dead end eyes
                                     for one fortnight.

                                        Be forthright.
                                        Am I blind?
                                   Or do I detect that
                               our headaches kind of rhyme?

Make us reborn this time; phoenix down and back upright.
Continued the drive and the world we're righting.
                                 We killed our time
                               and came back to life
Just in time to return to our twinkling
                                         town lights.

When we have our fill of the pissant Summer,
let me pick you up and we'll head out driving.
                   past the Cannery
                until Rouse turns free
our zipped up obits that we can't speak
                          cleanly.

Race away--
                  --like we'd set fire to Bon-Ton
Lose a day...
                   ...take 84 past the county line.
               Let the rain keep time on the sunroof
                                  'til we're fine.

                                Let the rain keep time
                                    on the sunroof.

                               You'll be fine...

That night we
decided that our streets led nowhere,
so we followed them any place.
Apartments
to grass outside the Molly Brown,
cracking faces, sidewalks, traced our way...

               North on 7th,
             getting warmer.
             Inverted frowns
            are getting larger
                                          Now

I'm wondering if these

               half-formed
               flimsy, brittle life-plans
and
               half-drained,
               dented, warming pint cans
of Schlitz
               clutched inside our fists
               suggest that it's worth it

To pin our hopes on approaching
                                        footsteps of Summer?
Or just halt our frozen
                   progress through the Wintertime
when we reach your front door.

We just kept
decoding all our scrambled rambling
'til we'd set the world on its head.
Keep walking,
keep laughing at our young mistakes,
sober night backdrop to beer soaked breaths.

               X'd out eyes
       and gravel sidewalks.
          Bozeman Autumn.
       Watch out, mailboxes
                                           'cuz

We're wondering if these

               half-formed
               flimsy, crack-filled answers
and
               empty,
               drained, five dollar pitchers
of Pabst
               humming 'neath our caps
               will help us draw our maps

and stick a pin in the Summer,
                                          page turned on Winter,
or just melt our thawing
                                          progress to another time
when later days trickle down.

Past
     closed up pizza joints
Past laundromats, through the dying noise
the nights tick on like clockwork
watch the calendar as my steps unwind

I'll wait for my thoughts to ferment
pick my words, hope I don't slur them.
Flip back past the page of these days
     get a read how I got to this age

From the summit where I'm stuck and posted
          reread the books where I come the closest
From the shelf spill my guts to ghosts here,
and relive old nights in Bozeman

          When I found a place
where the nights grew longer--
grew confident that I wasn't always wrong
and just drank the moon
          under dawntide tables
rolled the dice with the greatest friends
we said,                           "We're not old yet."

          Through
     crumbling bones at night
past skeletons of the city's size
the nights fall out like sand grains
curse the hourglass as my fate unwinds.

I'll wait for my brain to discharge
its contents on hospital charts.
Glued the book shut, stuck in the time
I gained my crutches and misplaced my mind.

From the bed that I'm ******* glued to
to cluttered basements I can't wade through
The foundation just won't hold up
against the cracks formed in Missoula.

          Ran off the rails
where I stumbled and stammered
grew comfortable beneath pint glass hammers
I still drink the moon
          under dawntide tables
grown apart from the greatest friends
who said,                      "You're not dead yet."