He Was My Steady and I Was His Girl
No, we weren't in love
For I knew it was for a time
I set out to see the world
Yet somehow I saw something in his eyes
It slowed my tracks
I cared in my depth
He was not at fault for life
How could I peel the monkey from his back?
I sat in my room in Cocoa,
I traveled Florida with a prominent job
I brought in a thousand or so a week in the eighties,
not bad fresh from the farm
Yet somehow there was something beneath his eyes
So, he was my steady
and I was his girl
He was twenty four and I, eighteen
He wasn't one to cry but occassionally I held him most of the night
I rough life for a kid of Georgia moonshiners
drinking from the age of three
and so the story goes, after a year he smiled and said I saved his life!
Perhaps as a humanitarian I should've gone
Later, the responsibility of a family had taken it's toll
He fell back into the crud that he said I saved him from
He was violent in the black-outs
the next morning he didn't remember a thing
My Mom begged me to leave
But I had a baby
that needed both a Mom and a Dad
and one day many years later,
I gave him a choice
The alcohol,
or me and the three children
He said he wasn't going to change,
that he couldn't
and sadly and sickly I walked away
The kids are all grown,
I never talked badly about him really
except on occassion, when I couldn't handle what all my family said
and many nights go by,
where I dream he's still by my side
Perhaps I should've left long ago
I was a humanitarian afterall
He had a sense of humor that I can never forget
He made me laugh when I was close to tears
and the other day, my daughter confided he held my picture
he said and could quit crying
Perhaps I should go now,
somewhere off of the cruel ground and be somewhere else
Somewhere to never think of all the bad
He said to the kids when he visited years ago
Your Mama is the only woman I ever loved
Perhaps the blackest of nights
I say that I've never truly been in love at all!
Pure love will never hurt you, I've heard it said...
Perhaps, I'll stay awhile
and remember his hand in mine
Like the constant dreams
When he is my steady,
and I, His girl
Copyright © Cindy Lu | Year Posted 2013
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