The Thirteen Dollar Cup of Coffee

Don't fret precious I'm here,
step away from the window
and go back to sleep..

It's weird how bad ideas work. How they kinda get into your head sometimes and just ..sit there.

I'll never understand it about myself, but it's like sometimes I have to go through with dumb ideas just so I can assure myself that they aren't that great. Like I have to step on the teeth end of a rake just so I'll can be absolutley certain that the handle end will come straight up and hit me in the face.

I keep buying these lottery tickets
even though I know they'll never win

It's one of those things -- this idea that inside me that not going through with things will somehow lead to missing out on some sort of grand experience. Like the week I don't buy that ticket my numbers will surely win it all.

So you go there again. You put that message in the bottle, you take it to the edge of the island, and you throw it out into the ocean. Sting does it and it's cute. You try it and it turns into some kind of grand comedy. It's not the greatest feeling in the world to realize that the hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore are all from yourself. That of all the castaways on the island, you're the only one who wants to fix the coconut radio and build a boat.

But if you're clever about it, you can turn it into a funny story that you can laugh about later with your friends. That time you tried to drive the uphill corkscrew turns on Ft. Caroline road backwards. The day you tried to drive to Atlanta and ended up somewhere in South Carolina. That night you let the bartender pick the shot for you. Casting George Clooney to play Batman. Forever holding this torch. Going to the last place in the world you could ever go to escape the lonliness that 4 silent walls and a string of Christmas lights can bring.

But you go. And you pay. You mix your coffee and you stare at the mirror. What you came for is here, but all you can see is yourself. It's not the band-aid you wanted it to be. It's not the band-aid you wanted at all.

Tip the waitress
Drink it down
Go back home.

[Listening to: Skindred, "Selector"]