I’m working tonight on a short story written a few years ago that I would like to put out sometime in the next year as a free read. The other stuff was making my brain mushy.
In the story, a woman uses songs she sings in a little pub to bare her heart to her husband. I was looking through old lyric notebooks from the days when I wrote and sang with friends (loooong ago). Then I thought about that adorable line Ahmed gave a friend, who asked him “when did you fall for her?” He answered “I didn’t fall, I crashed.” It has always stayed with me. I’ve stolen it for the following song.
Crashed
Frame the question in your heart:
was it worth the sacrifice?
Second chances, second starts...
Second leases on a life.
If I had the chance to change
or to start it all anew
take a second shot-- it's strange,
but I'd run right back to you.
It's been rough and it's been tangled
but the twists have made a shape
that, while bruised, and torn, and strangled
it's an ache I can't escape.
Light casts shadows on the pain,
but the curves rise from the lows
and time lifts most of the stains
and time softens all the blows.
It's been coming-- we both knew
there's a choice we'll have to make
twisted, tiny, but it grew--
beat the odds-- found roots to take.
Sad and fragile-- weak and pale,
but it's yearning for the light
and the light may dim and fail
but there's hope where there's a fight.
Would you stay, and fight with me?
Will you give this thing a chance?
Will you look for light with me
in this tumbling, crazy dance?
Out of chaos comes-- I don't know
something worth the fear and pain.
And if we can't try now I don't know--
if I can ever try again.
Let it live. Let it breathe.
Let it struggle toward the sun.
Take my hand. Just don't leave.
Fight that tremor. Stay. Don't run.
We're a tide. Ebbing, flowing...
sometimes high and sometimes low.
And I know my fear is showing,
that I'm so scared you're gonna go.
Like the waves upon the shore,
scattering treasures where they've dashed
from the fear came something more
babe, I didn't fall, I crashed.
© Chrissy Olinger … last line stolen from Ahmed El Anjanar :)
