leaving home

(Down the road from your memory track 1/first draft for group inspired by Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks)

late one mornin’ I was lying in bed

with sunlight striped across my chest

by the scarlet curtain above my head

it was the first time I felt you kick

and the last I spent with him

my folks they said our lives together

would be far from pleasant dreams

we’d met one night in Baltimore

saw Shorty on the Trombone at Pier 6

we locked eyes across our drinks

and that evening was pure bliss

yeah my folks said there should be

no life together   when the test 

showed two sticks    they said you can always judge a man 

on the company he keeps    I thought they were drama queens

I couldn’t believe he was a piece of shit

so we got wed    but as the months went by

and you grew I was far from fulfilled

I kept telling him I liked girls too

of the opposite he claimed himself

proof    on the night of a full moon

                 came due the bill

he lit a burner on the stove and produced a pipe

slammed shut the book I read

the greek poetess dashed out of sight

he said it was time for me to help out

money was tight and I’d work as a cook

at the restaurant belonging to his friend

Nasty Brook was a piece of work

he ran a topless bar and they say

he dealt with more    I stayed nearly a month

then closing one night I took everything from the store

told my parents I loved ‘em and filed for divorce 

then I took a bus on 70 west

    away from Baltimore