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We broke up before we wrote a note. Driving now, I hum in baritone—we would've been a trio that mostly played slow and noisy. I daydream about being good enough to play a show at my college where all the Catholic girls who'd never paid attention to me would be surprised by my talent and jump onstage and share the mic with me. We would've sang together. Of course, in order for that to happen, our band would've needed to play cover songs—songs on the radio— songs that Catholic girls would know by heart. And, looking back, it seems that I mostly had crushes on the Catholic girls who were genuinely Catholic— the ones who went to Mass on college Sundays even though their parents weren't there to make them go. I loved the believers even as I disbelieved. Of course, my bandmates—both of whom never went to college and were utterly devoted to slow and noisy punk— would've rebelled against my desire to play Top Forty hits. So we would've broken up anyway because of creative differences. And the Catholic girls would've walked by me again because I would've been a No Hit Wonder. And where are my theoretical bandmates now? One works in forestry and one works the family farm. They work with their hands. They touch the earth while I sit in parking lots and write poems. I'm still a non-believer in God but I often attend services in the Church of Nostalgia. There you'll find me singing along with the hymn book. Don't forget, don't forget, I intone. Please, as you grow older, don't forget the failed dreams that ache like a broken shoulder in the cold.
Damn, Sherman. The ‘failed dreams that ache like a broken shoulder in the cold’. Poets must be the least bashful surgeons on earth. No anesthesia, no fucking about - straight to the soul with the sharpest of scalpels.
Very nice!
The Church of Nostalgia, the Ministry of Regret, the Salvation of New Opportunity.