James

I've written nearly a hundred

songs

That were never meant to leave my bedroom,

I picked at the wounds

To find the perfect words,

And brutishly mashed them over simple chords

A thousand times over,

To prepare them for the judgement of being seen for the first time,

And when they had legs enough to stand,

I'd hold them by the bridle,

Waiting for the perfect person,

In the perfect moment,

That may have needed those words as much as I did. . .

And when I played the song,

I felt it leave me,

Like a neighborhood cat that was never really mine,

Destined to leap from the kitchen window

After regaining it's strength,

To find someone

Who needed the company

More than I did. . .

And in those cases,

I'd never play that song again,

Realizing that it had always belonged to someone else,

And that I was only meant

To deliver those words

To the moment

In which they'd live forever.

People like James remind me

Of that simple truth

I so often forget,

That an entire life

Lived in a single moment

Is a life well lived.

And the best we can give to a moment,

Is our unrelenting affection,

Before we let it loose,

To go wherever a memory goes

Once it's left us.

And we may chase the feeling it leaves behind,

Like a farm dog

beneath a murder of crows,

But we should all be so

To have something to chase.

- Johnny Bourbon