Gratitude

Left her lying in Lincoln

Cheyenne was calling

(The road too)

Got there

Checked into cheap

Walked across the street

Rodeo bar

Cowgirls dancing atop

Smiling down

Made every beer taste better

Met a cop the wrong way

Didn’t know they cared about limits in Wyoming

I slowed down to South Dakota

Deadwood stared me down

But we made friends

Stayed an extra day

Played blackjack with a Jack with one leg

Pulled it off put it in the pot

We laughed and kept drinking

The dealer got prettier with each smile

She was pretty to begin with

Spent the night listening to a woman wail in the hallway “Somebody let her the fuck in”

She wanted in bad

Her and all her baggage

The drive back to Lincoln was one of the loneliest Nebraska put me to the test

I made it back with a few hours to spare before my flight She didn’t even seem upset

We fucked sweetly on the floor of that shitty apartment Then she took me to the airport

Almost died on the way to Minnesota

I thought that plane was truly going down

It didn’t phase me

I knew then this was going to be a long ride

This life that already seems so long