I used to walk into a bar and I'd feel the grime crunch in under my feet like the charcoal they used to throw on sidewalks over snow when I was a kid.  I could smell the cold air then, and feel the sleigh behind me rattling around.  Still, no matter how dirty the floor, the stools were always the kind of clean smooth that only comes through heavy usage, place holders for our asses that they are.  Sedentary patterns of flirtation mark their place, keep time with the music, the same smooth sailing of the slope in the middle of a storm, worn down enough to get up enough speed, fluffy enough to crash,--when you get a chance to let free of everything for a few seconds.  All of the caution piled up and folding back on itself can go fuck off, and I'll scamper back up the hill to do it again, thank you very much.

Yep, that's where I'd go.  Before I got all sober.  Shit, like I'm a kid again, too.  Funny, that line.  How you can't repeat things, about how of course you can, about how Dylan ripped it out of an under-read Japanese author writing about a gangster.

Tell me you can't feel the cold water pipe sweat under your grip as you reach out for some structure, for a modicum of stability in a blissfully swaying bathroom.  Tell me you can't see the marker scrawled there in the moderately serious tones of stoned sober patrons, having sat away long afternoons into a good case of hemorrhoids and facial hair.  Tell me that you'll be able to live without the friendly embrace of that shockingly bitter IPA that makes you sit up and just beg like a damn dog.  Tell me that you'll commit yourself to something a little more long term, to finding the bliss of the moment without the need for the next minute's bliss.  Tell me that we'll find something out there together, one day, and that it will be perfectly selfless when we find it, being so naively self-centered, we can't find it now or we'd be spoiled forever.  Tell me about late nights and early mornings breaking over shoulders cold and welcome, waves of experience, and about the discipline of waking up, turning around to face them sleep in our eyes, about knowing what you stand for without getting approval for it first, and please, just between us, it's okay, give me the courage not to complain about co-workers to other co-workers.