What's that throb in my head?
Oh yeah, the sound of your voice.
What's that burn in my eyes?
An image of you, not by choice.

I get sick.
You're the flu.
I feel like dyin'
You're the disease.

What's that crushin' my heart?
Oh, yeah, you on a good day.
What's that feedin' my anger?
Oh, yeah, you neeedin' to play.

I try to sleep.
You kick me awake.
I try to think.
Then I hear you speak.

What's that rash on my skin?
Oh yeah, your touch I can't itch.
Who's that in my shadow?
My, oh my, it's you, ya bitch.

God, just leave me alone.
I threw away my phone.
You're a shit storm of a mess.
I changed my address.
Heading so far away
Done with you yesterday.
But until then,
I'm racing to the end,

Of... this... goddamn... planet...

Don't wanna look at you,
'cause ya robbed me blind.
You're not in my thoughts,
But still rattlin' my mind.

Can't get far enough away,
While you're crowdin' inside me.
You're another man's trinket,
While ya dangle my heart's key.

[Chorus]
Can't seem to shake ya,
You're like a permanent flu.
Been searchin' for a cure,
Don't know what to do.

You sure played our time,
Like a seasoned actress.
Yeah, ya got what you want,
Pitchin' lines from a mattress.

I'm yours, my honey.
Heard too many times.
How many other guys fell,
In your siren-call eyes?

​[Chorus]
​Can't seem to shake you,
You're like a permanent flu.
Been searchin' for a cure,
Don't know what to do.

Can't seem to shake you,
You're a fatal disease.
I need a vaccination,
While ya do what ya please.

Down a dirt no-name road,
Darla Jean skipped along in the fadin' light.
Was she chasin' a Monarch 'round the bend,
Just before a flutter of sparrows took flight?

By dark, her mama was sure in a panic,
Where's my Darla Jean LaFontaine?
Anyone see that li'l girl gone?
Cryin' face shone in a window pane.

The neighbors came and gathered,
Whispered to each other a solemn warnin'.
Somethin' real bad might be revealed,
When the sun rose up in the mornin'.

All fears came to pass,
The town's quiet was rocked,
A scuffed leather shoe,
Tangled hair all in a knot.
Lyin' half in the woods,
Fingers clutchin' a bonnet.
Dress soiled with mud,
With a streak of red on it.

Her mama shrieked with news,
I can't never live with the pain.
Lord, I never done ya no wrong,
Please bring back my Darla Jean LaFontaine.

Many years done passed,
Since that li'l girl's been gone.
Neighbors still sometimes wonder,
​What happened one night before dawn.

Life goes on 'round town,
While rumors circle all in a hush.
When someone whispers Darla Jean's name,
It's always followed by nervous shush.

Does anyone remember Darla Jean Lafontaine?
Lived her life in a stained glass vignette.
Last seen alone on a front porch rocking chair.
Sipping tea from a Waterford china set.

Darla Jean, where are you?
Darla Jean, where'd you go?
Ol' friend, you faded from us,
Where'd you go, we wanna know.

"That I'm old enough to have a midlife crisis," he said, with a wry smile. "Is giving me a midlife crisis."
The woman furrowed her brow. "Think of that yourself?"
"I did."
She conceded, with a nod, "Not bad,.
The man shrugged. "Pretty sure my dad had one. Not sure what they called it back then. Got into his late forties and just...changed. Family took a backseat. Even as a kid, I could see he was having an affair or something. Always at the golf course, supposedly. Came home showered a lot." The man took a drink from his beer. "It was like all the pressure that had been on him all his life finally got to him. Pressure to be a doctor. Pressure to be a husband. Pressure to be a father."
"I'm sure it wasn't easy."
"Don't let him off the hook."
"I'm not," the woman said. "It's just not easy getting older,"
"No, it's not. But it's better than the alternative."
The woman sighed. "God, I hate that trope."
"Age is just a number," she said.
"I hate that trope."
"Touche."
"The wife says it a lot."
"It's the truth," the woman said. "Think she really believes it?"
He straightened up for a moment. "That's a good question. I know she definitely wants to believe it. But I think she does believe it, too."
"It's not something people of a certain age like to talk about."
"Maybe men and women just talk about it in different ways."
"I don't think so."
"I do."
"How so?"
"Men like to reminisce," he said. "About the things they did when they were young. Off-roading in your parents Mercedes, getting blitzed at a college party, still trying to piece together what might've happened, donut fights speeding around town on your mopeds." He looked at the woman. "Reminiscing, reliving past semi-glory is kind of a guy way of dealing with age. The idea that they could still go out and do those crazy things..."
"Flirting with the hot young waitress?"
"No," he said. "I tink that a women's thing. Not that you ladies are all trying to rbing home that young buck. But more that, if you wanted to, you could."
"You have us all figured out," the woman said.
"No," he said. "Just women of a certain age."
She smirked. "Not the young ones?"
"Oh, they're a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an puzzle."
The woman slow-clapped her hands. "Well done, well done. Quoting Churchill."
They tapped their glasses, and took a drink. When both were done, the woman said, "Enigma."
"What?"
"Inside an enigma," she said. "That's the quote."
​The man shook his head. "Yeah, you are persickety."

​She lives her life like a stained glass vignette. In a country cottage, pouring red from a crystal carafe. Legs crossed on a wicker patio chair, looking out at fields of green stretching from doorstep to hilltop. We know each other, still she says we’ve never met. As her life passes by. Open the fence gate, my lady. Invite me in. Open your cotton sleeved arms, my lady. Invite me in. So I can open your heart... So I can open your heart...

See the battle scars of life, not on my sleeve, but speading from my eyes, like veins of a leaf. With a voice wrecked and hoarse, I call out her name, she turns to look back, but doesn't do the same. I wipe through layers of grit on my sandpaper forehead, over there a man drops to the broken pavement and is left for dead. I carry suffering and loss, success and failure on my sloping shoulders. Young fillies pass by me hardly a glance for my sins, as if I were a halted breath lost in savage winds. Bodega merchants take my money, returning change with a nod of respect, while the resident regulars turn up their noses and sniff. The city neighborhood is alive with people on the verge of death. Metaphorically speaking, of course. These are the up-and-comers, the soon-to-be movers-and-shakers, the hyphenated privileged retreating to their condos just far enough from the maddening crowd that an ocassional car engine passing below is the most intrusion they'll deal with behind their locked steel doors. Tear these weathered and faded threads from off my back, let the poison rain wash off the wretched stank. 

Even a stallion knows. The impossibly muscled frame eventually pulls back from a sprint. To a gallop. Nostrils flaring wide, like the exhuast on a dragster engine rumbling, shaking, spitting out exhaust. Head snapping one way, then the other, then raised high. The stallion stops and waits for only you. Majestic. Regal. Powerful. Long legs kicking at the earth, as if to make its physical and metaphorical stand. You climb onto the stallion. Feel the power. Become the power. Ride the stallion, confident and caustic, out to the battlefield. Raise your gaze; lift your head high. Charge into the unknown with belligerent assurance that victory is but on the other side. Live your life as the stallion does. With controlled violent abandon. With a fierceness that mocks mere mortals, and leaves them in its wake.

He put his hand on her knee.
She looked down at his hand, then gave him an interested look.
"I'd like to take you home," he said.
"Oh, you would?" she demurred.
"Yes," he said. "Very much so."
He leaned in slightly and stared into her eyes. For a few moments, she did not say anything. His hand moved fractionally up her thigh. She breathed in. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed her fingers taps on he wine glass stem.
"I, uh..." she started, then took in a deep breath. "You sure are a confident one," she said, in a low voice.
"I'm one to know what I like," he said. "What I want. His hand became heavier on her thigh."
"Yeah?"
"Yes."
"And I'm the one you want tonight?" she said.
"You are," he said, nearly before she finished asking.
"I think I'd like that," she said.
Those words never got dull. He gave her his best devilish grin. He squeezed her leg.
She placed her hand over his. And interwined their fingers.

The woman suddenly turned towards him. "Did I just see you yawn?"
"No, no..." He swallowed back a follow-up.
"You did yawn," she said.
He gestured towards her nearly empty wine glass. "I think the Pinot has clouded your perception."
"I don't think so," she said. "I hope my company isn't boring you."
"Hardly," he said. "Especially with a woman as engaging as you." He looked deep into her eyes to make the point. "You're one of a kind. A guy can never be bored of that."
She had seen that kind of look before. Like she was the only woman in the room. She half-smiled. "I'm going to get another glass," she said. "Let me get you another beer."
"And you may," he said, finishing the rest of the bottle in front of him.
The barmaid was especially efficient in bringing their order. The man held up his beer and the woman tapped it with her titlted wine glass. Then she took a sip.
"But you did yawn, didn't you?" she said.
The man took a gulp of his beer, and said, "Oh, yeah."
"Long week?"
​"They're all long."