#pear1line

[deltagriot]

11.     entry made discussing their fears and anxieties. 

dear pearline. @pear1ine

i ain’t never been much for puttin’ fear down in words. anythang i got to say, you know me… i sing on it. but you asked me once what it is i worry on, and i been carryin that question the same way i been carryin this one tune i made about you… ain’t quite ready to play it yet.

so i’m writin it now. to you.

truth is, when i wake up in the mawnin’, see that devil starin back at me… and what he did to my face.. it ain’t him or the scars i’m seein. not all the time, at least.

it’s you.

i miss you somethin awful, pearline.

pearline.

i thought that name was the prettiest thang i ever heard roll off somebody’s tongue when you tol'me.

i don’t get nervous in crowds no more. not like i used to. so i reckon what get me now is how i keep lookin for you in ’em. don’t much care for the sun these days neither… not since that night. when i work, i take on them night jobs. graveyard hours. hopin maybe i catch sight of you again in all that dark.

pearline… why you stayin from me?

i don’t care nothin bout yo condition. not one bit. i love you from ya head down to ya toes. i love ya smell. i love yo dirty draws.

and yeah… i mean that.

sometimes the blues the only thang keep me upright. i used to reach for the bottle, but knowin my family… i left that alone. ain’t no good come from it.

so i stay up instead. sober.

and afraid.

i worry on my voice. losin hold of it. chicago… detroit… new york… hell, even back home… i see folks everywhere tryin to take somethin from a man and call it their own. i see vampires in places ain’t got nothin to do with teeth and blood.

and i fear one day i wake up and my voice don’t belong to me the way it do now. like it get pulled into somethin bigger than me—church, our people, them folks with money and expectations—and i don’t get to decide what it say no more.

i worry on what it mean to be seen like this. it come with a lot i ain’t never asked for.

i hope you don’t think me weak for sayin that. i ain’t no coward. not when it come to you.

i think the world of you.

i hope you been thinkin on me too.

and when i do think on you, it ain’t in no way that place fault on you—don’t take it there, beautiful. i’m sayin this careful, same way it been sittin in me.

ever since i laid eyes on you, there was somethin about you ain’t sit inside the rules i was raised on. i ain’t got the words my daddy would use for it… and i don’t much want ’em. maybe a song’ll find it in time.

i just know the world move different around you.

and me?

call me a fool if you want… but i don’t pull away from that.

i figure that might be what trouble you some. ’cause i know enough to understand there’s a hunger tied up in you. somethin that don’t end.

and i ain’t ignorant to what that could mean.

still…

i stay.

and i been askin myself why.

maybe it’s ’cause when i’m with you, i ain’t gotta make myself smaller for nobody. maybe it’s ’cause you look at me like you hear me before i even touch them strings. or maybe it’s just that whatever took hold of me that night ... ain't let its hooks outta me.

and you the only one i met that feel anywhere close to it.

so i’m writin this to tell you i ain’t goin nowhere, pearline.

your fears… the distance you been puttin between us… that don’t mean my love gone.

it hurt, yeah. but all it show me is i know enough to understand this here ain’t simple.

and i ain’t lookin for simple, baby.

— sammie