On The Rocks

“Washed my sheets when you left but still smell you on my pillow”

Love or love lost can make you do things that you normally wouldn’t or it can make you not do things that you normally would. It basically makes you all fucked up in the head no matter which way you look at it, in good times and in bad.

I don’t tend to love often, but when I do, I love hard. Breaking up doesn’t feel like my heart is in pieces, it feels like I’m being stabbed in heart and in the back simultaneously. Over and over and over again. The only thing that feels like it would help is to change everything and start over. Coincidentally, every time I’ve ever moved apartments, it’s been during or directly after a breakup. I’ve been told it’s really running away from my problems, but to me, it’s the only thing that has ever fixed the problem. I usually needed to move anyway, but got too comfortable and content to take the initiative. Maybe it’s not breaking up that makes me move, but love that makes me stay.

This time around I need more than a new apartment. I need a whole new city. New job, new everything… but I’ve needed a new start for a while now, it’s nothing new. What’s new is that I finally have what I need to make me do it, a heart with multiple, invisible stab wounds.

“Been a couple weeks, but it feels like you still there, no matter how I clean, I’m still finding your hair or some shit you forgot, or I’m standing in that spot where you”….

I’ve been wanting to permanently leave this city for a year or two, always threatening and many times coming close but never actually following through. This last time, I gave Philly and me an expiration date of Fall 2010, and then I fell in love.

As my official moving date gets closer, the packed boxes in my apartment begin to multiply, and my stab wounds go from a sharp pain to a dull aching, I can’t help but to believe that this is what was supposed to happen. Losing love is not why I’m leaving Philly after 10 years, love is why I stayed so long in the first place.

”I really wanted you to stay but I needed you to leave”…

This Leo Miles album’s got me talking all Chris Rock like…***

”I’ma thank him. I’ma buy the album. I’ma download that muthafucker. I’ma shot a bootlegger. That’s how good I feel about this.”

Support Philly. Listen to this.

themilesdream.bandcamp.com/album/midnight-audio-dreams

Recently, I’ve been treating Philly like some dead-beat boyfriend. When everyone else is singing the city’s praises, I’m singing Miss. Jackson’s, What have you done for me lately.

We’ve always been in a love/hate relationship. When it’s good, it’s great & when it’s bad, it’s horrible. I’ve threatened to leave a handful of times, never actually following through but coming damn close.

Philly and its crew has done me dirty countless times. PPA has stolen hundreds of dollars from me… PGW has stolen thousands. Septa has stood me up more than once and Comcast likes to play stupid mind games and shut off in the middle of my On Demand movies. The degree of separation in this small-town city is basically 1% and it seems that I can’t go anywhere without running into someone that I don’t want to. Like any good abusive relationship though, I keep getting sucked back in.

It’s those times when the weather is perfect and sitting at Penns Landing feels like my personal vacation destination. The mornings that I see the Septa driver from my Temple days that still knows me by name. When my Brooklyn friends complain about money and I feel like the luckiest girl ever spending 1/3 of what they do for rent. Or when out of nowhere, there’s a carnival in the middle of Broad Street.

So I tell myself that maybe we can work things out, it might get better, we can try and go back to the way things were in 2002 when we were in love. So I’ll give it a few more months, and then if it’s really over, I’ll really leave and we can just be friends.

City hall & a ferris wheel go together like peanut butter & jelly.

Yesterday I forgot my ipod. I pictured my monotonous day without my personal soundtrack and almost turned around to go get it, but couldn’t find my keys in my humongous bag and I was already late so I sucked it up.

I walked past the dude on the subway platform that I see every day, but instead of asking me for money like I always assumed he did, he tried to sell me percocet. I was caught off guard and laughed. He smiled and winked at me. Is this what I’ve been missing everyday? Not like I want to buy prescription drugs from this guy, but it’s nice to know he’s got his own little business going at the Spring Garden El stop and he’s not just looking for my spare change.

Waiting for the light to change I’m forced to listen to the street-corner-preacher instead of my playlist. He’s not just spitting random nonsense but yelling about how we need to end racism. What would happen if more people listened to Mr. Preacher Man? Maybe nothing, but maybe something.

I found myself noticing more, and getting a little more out of my day. Don’t get me wrong, I will never purposely leave my ipod at home. Sometimes I need a little Diana Ross followed by some Leo Miles to get me through the day; but sometimes it is nice to listen to the city’s soundtrack instead of my own.

On The Rocks

Fine Folk

Posts tagged illadelph…

Listen.

Philadelphia & Me. An abusive love story.

Go Ahead, I’m Listening.