Cowboy Poetry

I loved her when it was dark outside, because the light exposed a multitude of sins and scuffs that I didn’t want anyone to see.

The scar above the arch of my eyebrow. The gash below my left ear. The hoofprint branded right by my hip.

Every time the sun went down, I’d feel the burning start to rise in my chest, hitting like the Kentucky hug of a barrel proof bourbon.

But with her, there was no moment beforehand to brace for it; it would just come on, like clockwork.

She was the only girl on the circuit. It started out as a sort of game – see how deep I could get without actually caring.

How close I could get to the horns without ending up with a puncture wound.

I thought I could fill my Lucchese boots with concrete, sink to the bottom, and kick them off before my lungs had a chance to fill with water. I got lost in her ocean instead.

I would listen to the other guys make jokes about how they wished she’d ride them like that. Depending on how much Eagle Rare I’d drunk, I'd start a few fights about it too.

I'd heard she had a boyfriend back home in Texas.

That he didn’t say the right things and that he didn’t listen to the right music. That he didn’t even know who George Strait is.

So I loved her when it was dark out, because that’s when I was allowed to love her.

One night, after an event in North Dakota, I whispered it aloud for the first time. When it came out, it was barely audible over the crackling of the fire and the chirping of the field crickets.

“Say it back,” I implored her. “I don’t care if it’s not true, I just want to hear how it sounds.”

“I love you too,” she said, her Southern twang ringing out like a note from a lap guitar. I wondered if it had all been a game to her too.

Then, as quickly as she’d arrived, she was gone. Maybe she got tired of saying goodnight to that boyfriend through the phone or being called lil' lady everywhere we toured.

As riders, we live our lives in increments of eight seconds so you learn not to question these things too much. You just hope that folks have moved on to bigger and better things.

I spent a couple of months moping around listening to sad country songs. She used to call country music cowboy poetry and, once she said that, I started hearing notes in it that I’d never heard before.

Sitting in those dingy motel rooms, it felt like I could still hear her saying “I love you” over and over in its steel guitars.

I saw her again, years later, in a magazine article about female riders.

Must have looked like a crazy person running my finger across the glossy cover in an Arkansas gas station, tracing the line of a healed scar that I’d never noticed on her face when we used to lie together.

I realized then maybe she only loved me when it was dark outside because she didn’t want anyone to see any of her sins or scuffs either.

I think about her with every mouthful of bourbon and every Marlboro I chain-smoke by the fire. But I think of her most when I get on a bull.

Because I already danced with death, or something close to it, and made it out the other side.

When you compare ‘em with love, bulls are as easy as apple pie.

Anyway, enough about all that.

What are you drinking? Next round’s on me.