RAISON OUTRÉ
Through good times and bad, I follow the mode. I follow the mode constantly, and with religious fervor. Up and down spiral staircases in Londonium, back and forth across bridges and time. One night in Breukelen, centuries ago, I chased the mode clear across the East River. "May the wind be at your back." It was what the graffiti said. I pissed off the Billyberg bridge. I thought about climbing over the fence and then right up to the top of the bridge and look down and think sick thoughts and think lovely, lonely thoughts. I looked out and wrote songs in my head. People look at me and don't really see. You know, I was really heartbroke in that time. I had to go home and maybe leave it behind forever or at least a good long while. The songs I wrote became things to protect, like children. And all around the iron town, people just didn't care about children. Then suddenly I look down and all I am is just a guitar with legs and, by God, I'm just too proud. There wasn't no money and the street filled with shit and a dead cat. My bed was so cold. I singed my eyebrow lighting a cigarette on the stove once. I came home covered in vomit. The walls were too thin. You heard sex noises. The Dominicans could stare daggers. Text messages announced drug deals. I lost friends to activism and the ice-cream dealer kept ungodly hours. They say the wind’ll cut right through you because it does. But you know, once I spent the afternoon watching the Metropolitans out in Queens and Christ Jesus it was a beautiful day, so cold and clear and you could look out forever in every direction from up there with your nosebleed and sat shivering drinking ten-dollar beers and I guess I must’ve had me a ten million-dollar smile.
-Asa
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