bigger than big hearts break in smaller than small town america

imagine the larger than large promise of a child born to bigger than big hearts in smaller than small town america, imagine the laughter and popping of cheap champagne in the paint-blistered home as neighbors and family gathered round to see the new love, imagine the tough days ahead and long hours daddy works to support his young family and coming home late in time to kiss his little girl goodnight and share the day's stories with his young wife who knows life is hard but so worth it cause everyone she loves is right there and to fight for is right for them all...

imagine years later the daughter is grown and out on her own, married with two kids and her own smaller than small home and the man whom she loves out working which leaves her alone, and life is real hard tryin' to make it when the economy's gone south in america and she's gotta start thinkin about working herself but she's not sure where, when, or how, and she's scared cause her man is old-fashioned and doesn't want her workin but the kids need basics they cannot always provide the way things are, not to mention her parents are gettin older and need help...

imagine she's got a girlfriend whose sorta lost with no life like hers, who sometimes comes to babysit or just cure her loneliness for awhile, and her friend has some friends who she's becoming friends with, too, and they are all very nice and see how tired she is and wanna help...

and help sometimes comes in the strangest of forms, like when people in smaller than small towns with bigger than big hearts come together for a quick and easy answer cause they ran out of patience and energy and hope, so they resort to small parties and quickening of pulses, alcohol and cheap cigarrettes, some weed and relax, put on some old chart-topping trax and get to dancing, maybe fun loves between former boys and girls, while daddy's out working away the long day, and babies are napping their pretty little heads down, and friends will be friendly and adrenaline rises with a chance for some hope to distract from the powerless normalities around here...

hope in the form of intimacies and attraction, the realization you could still be young again a little longer if you tried, if you let your guard down a little and weren't so old-fashioned, if you let down your hair and wore your old clothes a bit tighter, almost like you still had a chance, it's exciting, and yes there's a seam in this matrix which you all downplay, might be one of them cuts up a line of some shit, and not everyone partakes until everyone does, that kinda subtle peer pressure and understated delivery, and it's no big deal until it is...

imagine how that plays out over several weeks to several months, and now there's a bit of a problem in the judgment department, the insight department has broken down unawares, and some friends get more intimate against all expectations, now emotions involved, just imagine...

home life becomes 'boring' and the life is all 'chores' and the kids are so frustrating though never a 'nuisance' and daddy's always tired always tired always tired, and you wanna feel good again you like how it feels with your friends and alone seems so foreign so scary unbearable, so you go on with your ways which you know have got shady, in the smallest of small town america, what with your biggest of big hearts...

nobody knew nobody fathomed nobody could have seen how it played out in the end, imagine the heartbroken suprise that day they found out you were the one in the news who had died who was found in the most public of public places, naked and alone floating in an eddy in a slow moving wide part of the river. yet no one was really all that surprised, almost strangely relieved in a way, for several years you had broken their hearts as you faded or they faded you out of your home life, or somehow some way your big heart went astray and you kinda lost your mind followin some so-called friends off the map of your motherly responsible path, definitely on drugs and you admitted it, too, and several times the intervention came in the form of coffee and donuts and family in your living room, concerned faces whose concern you tried to talk off, and an angry tired man by your side with two scared and half-hungry little kids you just wanted to hug all the day long, but something inside you demanded be fed, and you long since left and lost your little head though your big of big hearts was the same just the same...

it was like despite all that and the love all around you, nothing could be done to get it all right, something was lacking in money and resources, something was strained past the point of any use, and family could not know how to be... other than deeply and morbidly depressed when the thought of what to do about you came to light. so when you died it was almost like relief to them all, but others around your so-called friends started coming up headlines as well, and the smallest of small towns in small town america was about to make international headlines, you know, cause these young women dying for no good reason was too much for the eyes of the world to pass up for too long, and it turns out there were others in some status and addiction to power out taking great and greedy advantage of the desperate situation of impoverished peoples with the biggest of bigger than big hearts and minds long since lost in the smallest of smaller than small town america...

imagine the manipulations concocted by these exact people in positions of great power in such small places, demanding small intimacies from these lost women to heal their long since broken capacity for real and genuine warmth. and it even went off kinda well or so it seemed, i mean it oiled a system long since cracked from coast to coast so how could that be wrong? or terrible? or unholy? nobody would check themselves and why should they, when you and your friends had been paid for your services and conveniently fit into the transactional nature of corporate america...

 forget the emotions underlying and the hearts beating bright for a chance and some hope, and young half-starved children all waiting extended out into wings, out on the margins where they found you all brutally murdered or left to die with cocaine in your system, or meth or whatever... the biggest of bigger than big hearts forever broken in the smallest of smaller than small towns, that's what.