there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I’m too goddamn tough for him, I say, stay in there, you little bastard, I’m not going to let anybody see you.
there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I pour whiskey on him and I inhale cigar smoke and the whores and the bartenders and the quiet, respectable, completely castrated men in the office never know that he’s in there.
That’s the game, isn’t it? That’s the whole fifty-seven-year-old charade. I’ve spent a lifetime building this fortress. The “Sailor.” The “Mormon.” The “Millionaire.” The “King of the Tequila Bar.” I built walls made of sarcasm, and cynicism, and a quiet, respectable kind of rage. I layered on the muscle, the loud voice, the “I don’t give a fuck” attitude like it was goddamn armor plating.
there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but he’s a quiet little bastard, he knows the score, he knows that I’m the one who runs the cage. He wants to get out. He wants to remind me of the quiet, beautiful, and completely honest kid who used to play with Lincoln Logs at his grandmother’s house. He wants to remember the smell of the mint tree, the quiet, gentle hand of Uncle Brown. He wants to talk about the Ukrainian, about the one time I actually felt something, that beautiful, ugly, and completely insane firestorm that almost burned me to the ground.
And I look at him, this soft, stupid, beautiful thing, and I say, “Stay the fuck down. Do you want to mess me up? Do you want to screw up the whole goddamn escape plan? Do you want to make me so soft that I don’t get on the plane to Vietnam? Do you want to make me stay in this goddamn shithole and die in a quiet, respectable, and completely passionless bed? Stay down.”
there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I’m too clever for him, I only let him out at night sometimes, when everybody’s asleep. When the bottle is half-empty and the whole goddamn city of Tucson is quiet. When the phone isn’t ringing and the emails aren’t coming and the ghosts of all the women I’ve ever known are finally, finally asleep. I let him out, just for a minute. I sit in the dark, and I say, “I know you’re there, you little sonofabitch. So don’t be sad.”
then I pour another drink, and I put him back, but he’s singing a little in there, just a quiet, muffled, and completely defiant tune. I haven’t quite let him die. I can’t. and we sleep together like that me and the bird, with our quiet, desperate, and completely honest secret pact, and it’s nice enough, and sad enough, to make a real man weep.
but I don’t weep. I pack. I plan. I check the goddamn flight schedules.
I don’t weep. do you?
