Crazy Heart

Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York

This ain't no place for the weary kind
This ain't no place to lose your mind
This ain't no place to fall behind

I rolled the dice comin' to this town. I felt like I had nothin' to lose. So I sold everything and climbed on the plane with anxiety, hope and apprehension racing through my veins. I left Austin with my heart on the loose, bankin' on New York City, chasin' love and adventure. I found them both, along with madness and an overwhelming grind. I'm filled with a constant nagging dread. This city fuckin' beats me down, man. My body and mind feel dead. Eight million people and I don't got a single friend, like Gil Scott Heron said. I feel an indefinable ache. I have no sanctuary in this twisted state. I found love, but somehow lost myself in this place.

The full moon loomed over the rooftops of Brooklyn as the psychic and I sat in the sweltering darkened stairway of her building near the entrance to the subway. A candle burned next to a deck of tarot cards on the small table that stood between us. She peered into me with soft green eyes surrounded by smooth brown skin. Sweat traced the black of her hairline. The gold cross around her neck glinted with the flickering light. "You like this place sometimes, but mostly you're confused," she said, smiling as a cop's radio squawked on the sidewalk outside the door amidst the people. She stopped to listen, then continued, "It's too much for you here. You get lost in the shuffle." The sweat dripped down the side of my face and beaded on my arms. "You need to leave. Part of you is dead here." A glass breaking sounded on the street. "You'll be more alive someplace else. You need to be somewhere calm. I see Seattle." Her eyes closed as though she was meditating, opened, then searched me again as drunken laughter sounded from Bedford Ave and the drinking drunken crowds. "Someplace like that suits you. You got off track coming here. You'll get back on it once you leave. I'd leave as soon as possible if I were you. I see you surrounded by green. You're life is waiting for you."

The days and the nights have run together. I tried to make it work here. But it just doesn't feel like home. Lost, searching, twisting, turning, sweatin' out the demons and the hate. I feel like I'm stuck in bad still frame, a snapshot of a person who I don't recognize anymore. Like a bad dream that I can't wake myself from. My center is out there, somewhere. It seems it's my destiny to roam. I'm not done lookin'. I'm not done with love.

This ain't no place to fall behind
Pickup crazy heart and give it one more try
This ain't no place for the weary kind

Peace