It's my birthday today i'm gonna do what i want
gonna spend it with strangers in picton
see the sights, the smells the citizens of the sounds
but mainly spend 5+ hours in Le Café, I've got till 2am to kill
to catch my boat, so I'll try to commit to my book and call my parents
but i just can't help myself,
I've got to befriend all the staff, and now where at the irish bar and i go up to the covers guy and i ask him can i play a song to your crowd tonight?
he says nah
and i say allgoods
so i make my way back to my new friend Maya and try to share some space to connect and banter,
and hopefully we'll end the night as friends,
on instagram
and then we're held social hostage by a dude with the world's coldest open.

He says he's got three months to live, isn't he lucky that he doesn't have kids? and only the silliest of phrases can slide out my mouth
"mate are you alright?"
he says
"I WANNA FEEL MY TEETH ON CONCRETE AND THE WORLD TO SWALLOW ME WHOLE,
AND WHEN I FEEL FLIGHT FROM FIFTEEN STORIES, NO ONE IN THE WORLD COULD RECOGNIZE WHAT THAT MESS ONCE WAS AND NO AMOUNT OF COKE COULD WASH AWAY MY STAIN"

well that's a lot to take in mate,
I'm not equipped for this tonight, could we rewind back to when i was just a stranger and not the only therapist in sight.
and then he does one of those really uncomfortable laughs

You know the kind that goes a bit too long and a bit too hard, but what's worse is when he stops, he's lost looking past the blankness on the wall
he's cold and grey and still, and now i notice
a single tear,
rolling down,
the surface of its paper
and Maya says
"Maybe we could go outside and get some fresh air for the rest of the evening" and so we do that
and we hide out from the parasol out from the rain and then he exclaims that "the best song of all time is no quarter by Led Zeppelin"
and i don't have the heart to tell a dying man he's wrong,
it's obviously "where is the love" by the Black Eyed Peas
and in the middle of his own explanation, he interrupts himself and asks me simply if I'm happy and I say "I'm pretty good considering, it's my birthday day today"

He gifts me a cigarette and doesn't say goodbye
I call out to him "mate are you alright... to get home?"
he doesn't turn around, only walks into the night

singing

"well mate does it even matter anymore?"