You’re a singer — a frontman to some local band, sure. You’ve got this low, meandering voice that’s like something smooth dragged across gravel, and now I hear it everywhere I go in this town. So much so, I feel like I’ve memorized your voice’s deep cadence. It’s rockabilly, it’s classic, it’s soulful. I’ve seen you sing, I’ve heard you, and I can’t unhear you. I remember you looking like David Foster Wallace when you wear bandanas. And your hair grows longer by the month, still. You wear a lot of vests, and you’ve a smirk that’s kind of sideways. You’ve a penchant for instruments and a voice that’s like The National and Neil Diamond and some old-timey coal miner who birthed music in the old west and out with the underbelly of Americana, this haunts me in a way.
We have spoken — kind of. But this isn’t like some missed connection where I saw you at a gas station, and we notably exchanged glances at a specific time of the week I can recall. Because you’ve rested heavy on my mind as such a low-key constant that I can’t recall when I first or last met you. Just know we have. Though, I doubt you’ll ever see this, and if you or someone you knew did, I doubt there’s a proverbial line between us that stood a chance of being connected. Nothing’s really been missed here. Still, I feel like somehow if I can get this out there, it’ll be easier to sleep at night telling other people you’re a guy to make a girl’s heart ache. Now, it aches a little less, and tomorrow, this feeling will grow even duller.
Walt Whitman probably best sums this up in a poem referenced in the title. He’s a man of countless missed connections of all the world’s kindred spirits. And perhaps it sums up what this post can be to everyone, everywhere. Port Huron and beyond.
Pent-Up Aching Rivers 