Steemit Open Mic Week 82 – 'Polaroids' (cover)

I've got a cover for you this week – a song called 'Polaroids' by Shawn Colvin.

During my first major depression, teaching myself how to play this song was a crucial part of my medicine.

I hadn't played guitar in several years. I was super rusty and this song was quite difficult for me to get through. But it gave me something tangible to dig into – a way to silence my own voices and pin my emotion to those of another. It made it all feel less heavy, somehow.

Shawn is a unique song-writer. This song, in particular, was crafted without the standard format of verses interspersed with a repeating chorus. It moves much like a stream-of-thought journal entry and, as I understand it, tells the story of a particular chapter in her life. I love the intimacy of that.

As always – thank you for listening!

xo, Zippy

please, no more therapy
mother, take care of me
piece me together with a needle and thread
wrap me in eiderdown
lace from your wedding gown
fold me, and lay me down on your bed

or liken me to a shoe, blacked and spit-shone through
kicking back home to you, smiling back home
singling back home to you
laughing back home to you
dragging back home to you

I was so wary then, the ugly American
thinner than oxygen, tough as a whore
he said 'you can lie to me, I own what's inside of me'
'and nothin' surprises me anymore.'

but forests in Germany
kids in the Tuileries
broken-down fortresses in old Italy
claiming his victory
shrouded in mystery
he went running away with me

back in our home New York
walking these streets forlorn
we all in our uniforms, black and black
doing that slouch and jive
the artist must survive
we've got all we need we cried, and we don't look back
thinking we had it made
poised for the hit parade
knee deep in accolades
the conceptual pair
but ever the malcontent
he left without incident
vanished into thin air

I am always amazed
words can fill up a page
pages fill up the days
between him and me
the vows that we never keep
from bedrooms to business-speak
make me remember how cheap words can be

and the letters I wrote you
were those of the desperate stuff
like begging for love in a suicide threat
but I am too young to die
too old for a lullaby
too tired for life on the ledge

but I had a dream last night
of lovers who walked the plank
out on the edge of time, amidst ridicule
they laughed as they rocked and reeled
over the mining fields
coming to rest on this ship of fools

he just took polaroids
of her smile in the light
of the dawn of the menacing sky
and before they went overboard
she turned and held up a card
and it said valentine

^{Heartfelt thanks to @luzcypher, @krystle, @soundlegion, @passion-ground,

@verbal-d, @meno & @pfunk for all you do.}