Saint Annie
By Israfel Sivad

No meaning, rhyme, or reason
rolls along beneath my life,
carries me forward,
expands my senses
with scenes
of simplicity.

Someday, I might tell you about it…

The night I broke my thumb,
the sweat poured down my face.
I took a cab to the ER,
but I never went in.
I couldn’t afford it.
My insurance had all run out.
I went to a whorehouse instead.
I wanted to forget how bad I hurt,
but I couldn’t afford a whore anymore.
My bank account had finally gone dry.
There was a time when I wouldn’t have cared,
but then, I decided to take a cab somewhere.

By the time I reached the Hellfire Club,
there was still one girl left at the bar.
Sitting with her legs crossed, she was the only girl there
who said she could mend me for free.
That was my orphan, my little Saint Annie.
There was one place left for her to go,
and I couldn’t follow her there.
She ran away one day. Where? I don’t know.
She went to wherever she had to go.
She shattered herself. She came full circle
lying between the sheets like a whore.

This city gets in your lungs.
You can’t cough it out.
The pollution, the grime
seeps through you,
discolors your skin,
changes your eyes,
takes you to a thrift store,
buys you a new wardrobe,
clangs its symphony all around you
until you realize you are no longer
the person you started your journey as,
and you really don’t care anymore.

You look back, over your life,
wonder if all the twists and turns
really lead back to here,
to this theme that recurs,
that creeps into your head,
that plays its twisted chords
of gunfights and shootouts,
of falling, laughing back into bed
with someone you love tight in your arms.
A rhyme? No. It’s subtler than that.
It’s the noontime theme from High Noon
hummed, so pretty, by little, orphan Saint Annie.

For more of Israfel Sivad's writings go to: http://andrews-songs.tumblr.com/