Back Streets

My forever friend (I hope) leaves for NH

It was a day, in some ways, like many others. I made avocado toast. We sat outside on the back patio and ate it.

As this song wafted through the speakers, the New Englander explained how it had affected him when he was a youngster:

One soft infested summer
Me and Terry became friends
Trying in vain to breathe
The fire we was born in
Catching rides to the outskirts
Tying faith between our teeth
Sleeping in that old abandoned beach house
Getting wasted in the heat
And hiding on the backstreets
Hiding on the backstreets
With a love so hard and filled with defeat
Running for our lives at night on them backstreets

Slow dancing in the dark
On the beach at Stockton's Wing
Where desperate lovers park
We sat with the last of the Duke Street Kings
Huddled in our cars
Waiting for the bells that ring
In the deep heart of the night
We let loose of everything
To go running on the backstreets
Running on the backstreets
Terry you swore we'd live forever
Taking it on them backstreets together

Endless juke joints and Valentino drag
Where dancers scraped the tears
Up off the streets dressed down in rags
Running into the darkness
Some hurt bad some really dying
At night sometimes it seemed
You could hear the whole damn city crying
Blame it on the lies that killed us
Blame it on the truth that ran us down
You can blame it all on me Terry
It don't matter to me now
When the breakdown hit at midnight
There was nothing left to say
But I hated him
And I hated you when you went away

Now laying here in the dark
You're like an angel on my chest
Just another tramp of hearts
Crying tears of faithlessness
Remember all the movies, Terry
We'd go see
Trying to learn how to walk like the heroes
We thought we had to be
Well after all this time
To find we're just like all the rest
Stranded in the park
And forced to confess
To hiding on the backstreets
Hiding on the backstreets

Except it wasn't a day like many others. It was only kind of like one other day, June 26, 2013, when he moved back to NH the first time. And it wasn't even that much like that.

The feeling was really different this time. The feeling was saying goodbye to the two of us as lovers, to bowing in gratitude for what this time spent together in that way had done for us, and of moving on to a new phase.

We're not sure exactly how it'll work, but we're going to do our best to remember this day...

Where we swore forever friends
On the backstreets until the end

💕