The Story of Texas Pete

 

Press play and let the music wash over you as you read.

Salute.

(A lone voice whispers)

I was once addicted to a beautiful stranger 

Unknowingly using them like cheap cocaine

 

But as I look back on my life after my last confession 

After speaking to Father Poe

I now know

 

That when I got down on my tired old knees

Before the rusty cross 

My beloved grandfather made in our back garden

On Christmas Day in 2008 

During the last Great Recession

To pray in the falling rain

For salvation 

 

I know now I fought the devil for freedom that fateful night 

At midnight 

 

After wearing his X proudly for year's

Like the Mark of Cain

I've sacrificed all my precious time

Crucified my family and friends

For my only lover 

Who I thought would last until the very end 

A stranger who suddenly appeared when I was weak 

With sweet answers to everything and anything

You could seek or name

And even though now I’m free

I still wear loneliness golden chains

 

Like just another of the cursed

From the Brotherhood of the Profane

For that's how the Tall Man

Designed me

 

So my therapist told me

 

Broken 

Fractured and to be endlessly consumed

With vivid surging memories of bloodstained mental campaigns

Baptised to ride the inhumane storms of life

On a wooden ship called Hardship

And to grow and sink nightly in its many hurricanes

But now

I'm no longer a stranger to pain

And as I age

I still just use it like cheap cocaine

 

Walking bravely alone

In the falling rain

 

Knowing the Devil knows my name

And that’s why he leaves me alone

 

For he remembers our battles

At midnight 

In my grandpa's backyard 

 

When I once played his games

 

I’m glad God won though

For it’s him

I now travel to see

As I ride this life

Seated content with strangers

On one of his many slow-moving trains

 

High on all my pain

My old memories

 

Which I’m still addicted too

Like when I held hands with my old friend

 

Mother Cocaine

 

I can safely say this good old reborn Christian boys coming home

I just hope my Mary Jane is waiting for me

And when I get off that last stop

And finally arrive

She lets me explain 

By singing her a holy love song 

About my fight at midnight 

With the God of Cocaine

In my grandpa's backyard

When I was alive

 

 

 

Copyright John Duffy