Promises and Failure and Somehow You Keep Going

My silence is rude. I know... but when the words won't come, there's little a man can do.

I've tried to write this several times... and it just keeps coming out wrong... So I guess I'll just have to accept wrong.

I grew up in a cowboy world where you kept your word... or you were worthless. The world of a bunch of old cowboys lost in the wrong damned century. One of the few places I've "fit".

The only thing they had was a saddle, maybe a battered old pickup and their word.

Life wasn't gentle with them but they didn't quit. Day after day they put one foot in front of the other and kept moving. Cowboy Up! It's got me through life.

But the unending struggle has me wore down.

When I was five maybe six, I attacked a man with a rock. I thought he was hurting my mother. They were playing out in the water of Lake Erie... I nailed him in the head with a rock from the beach.

On to the army... for which I continue to be chastised for my weakness and the inability to "forget" the scars of memory.

Lost count of the scraps after that... when the values by which I must live ran head on into __ those of this "modern" world... or maybe rather... their absence.

My whole entire life has been one unending fight...

Roll in marriage... with all it's layers of complexity, confusions and parts that cannot be understood or explained.

Then the day comes... you get up to put one foot in front of the other and the bastard won't move. The tank is empty. You simply can't lift that foot again. There's no sorrow. No pain... no... anything... simply... empty.

You gave your word but there's nothing to push it on... and the shame swells.

You are done. Toast. Finis... and you think... It would have been so much easier to have just gone under so long ago... but... honor dictates you keep going. They couldn't so you have to.

You cowboy up... You close your eyes and reach down deep. You put one foot in front of the other and you keep going...

I Am Still Going
- Brian