Ugly 17

Can anybody find me somebody to love?
Each morning I get up I die a little
Can barely stand on my feet
Take a look in the mirror and cry
Lord what you're doing to me
I have spent all my years in believing you
But I just can't get no relief, Lord!
Somebody, somebody
Can anybody find me somebody to love?


Everyday - I try and I try and I try -
But everybody wants to put me down
They say I'm goin' crazy
They say I got a lot of water in my brain
Got no common sense
I got nobody left to believe
Yeah - yeah yeah yeah

Oh Lord
Somebody - somebody
Can anybody find me somebody to love?

Got no feel, I got no rhythm
I just keep losing my beat
I'm ok, I'm alright
Ain't gonna face no defeat
I just gotta get out of this prison cell
Someday I'm gonna be free, Lord!

Find me somebody to love
Can anybody find me somebody to love?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After Moses died I was in a fog for about a year or so. It was all so vague. I was truly lost. I was lost in a way neither the good lord or the devil could find me , even if they were looking. No-body was looking, though. I gained 50 pounds. I stopped running across hills and streams. I stopped frogging. I stopped fishing. I didn't even pick up the guitar. It was in the hay loft. I would look at it and cry.

My heart sank each time I saw the old steel guitar. It was a snapping snake that hits it's mark every time. The memories flood in. Tears flooded out. Each day the same.

Oh don't get me wrong, I tried to stay away from that thing. But it called out, an obsession, a compulsion of sorts. It made me come to it everyday, as if Moses himself was commanding me to play at his funeral. Only this time I refused and I kept refusing.

Lost and lonely. I saw it too many times when I was young. It came to me one of the days in the loft.

What came to me?

The notion, I needed someone who loved me, to fill the void left by Moses. Now I was getting older, I was 14 with a vengeance. My breast stopped hurting but were still growing. My hormones were in an uproar begging me to find someone , anyone to share a life with, a smile with, a inside joke with, someone who got me.

There, that is it, what I think every human being on the face of this Earth is long for, someone who gets them. It might be a friend. Hey, if we have a good friend who gets us then lovers can come and go all they want, as long as we have that one person. That one person we could always could count on not to take it wrong when we say the wrong words. That one person who when we say nothing is wrong knows we are lying and will not stop asking until we fess up.

For most of us, we seek it in a mate. Soul mates they call them. But I think that is mostly bullshit. When we are lost and lonely we believe in bullshit something fierce.

So everyday I was drawn to the ghosts of the past, I started praying to God, a just and loving god, a god that doesn't turn his back on people who need help. There are people who believe this is hard to fine, they look all their lives. The end up believing in the end God is their one person who gets them . But I was not about to give up to some holy ghost.

No, I wanted flesh and blood person to love. I would sing out in a cracked and sad voice the song by Queen, Somebody to love, I would leave out a verse. I had not started working yet, everything else fit, everything else spoke to me. Spoke to me hard, right down to my soul. Funny how some songs are prayers. Not the gospel ones, I mean songs you sing along to on the radio or records. Every teenage girl knows this deep down. Why do you think we sing so many songs about love? Some of those sappy teenage love songs have real crappy lyrics. Not this one, though.

School, was still hell. Kids teased me, now they got meaner.

Ugly, Ugly, Ugly... I answered to the name. I give in. They see me as nothing else. I lash out at everyone. I guess I am ugly in my grief. Maybe this is who I always was. We are who we are and when you feel ugly you will act it out if you so desire.

I got called down to the principle at least once a week. A heavy serving of guild from grandmother always kept me from being expelled. She seemed like she cared for me to the principle, at home, I knew she just didn't know what to do with me. That old women stooped to encourage me to pick up that old guitar, to go to the black church and even suggested I go see Hope, Faith or Love for a new dress, since I "out grew" the old one. Nice way to say I had gotten fat. Yeah the kids also reminded me of the weight I put on, too. I didn't want a new dress. I was fine in these old overalls, they hide, I believed some of this extra fat.

I was so addicted to my self loathing and pity I had no clue how not to be. I was trapped with a blind fold on trying to feel my way out. There was no way out.So now I pray, pray for salvation in the form of someone to love me, for me to love, someone who gets me and I get in return.

New kid in town. Boy. He's 16. Blond. Blue eyed. Best of all, he's not from these parts, he's from the east. Breath of fresh air, to say the least. He talks to me, like he talks to everyone else. He doesn't get the cold talk the other's do. He never calls me ugly.

His name is Miles. Like the Jazz guy. His mom was a hippie ,too. Moved him and his brother and sister to get back to nature, natural ways. Organic farming. She says it is the way of the future. Grandfather said it was 5 steps back to the past. She said it is healthier and everyone will be wanting organic food. it will be important, even if it more expensive. Grandmother baked some corn bread and brought the whole crew over. His mom went on and on about food and organic and it all seemed as complicated as chemistry. But it sounded good to me, what I understood, deadly additives, killing us slowly but not so slowly that we wont be dying before our parents. She talks about the things we feed the animals, the genetic engineering, the hormones and antibiotics are making our children mature quicker, makes us resistant to antibiotics, and harms us in so many ways.

I wish I could have talked with her forever. She reminded me of the commune. She had a greater purpose. Even if that purpose was just to make food they way we used to. It's good to have purpose. A light in the fog that was my head. Of course you can only realize when the beginnings of the brake in the fog in hindsight. No one in my life had such passion as she did. You need to be passionate about something in life. Because it is life.

Anyway, the boy, he was nice to me. He was nice to everyone. He didn't seem to want to be part of this group or that, jock, artist, popular kids, nerds or misfits like me, he seemed to talk to them all.

My fog lifted a little bit more as my heart started to attach itself to that boy with the Jazz Man's name.

I remembered the first day of spring of that year, I was called, just like everyday since Moses passed , to the hayloft, to the old guitar. This time I grabbed it. I ran with it. I ran to the organic farm. I wanted to show his mother I could play. I know, you might think, why wouldn't I be looking for Miles. I wanted his mother to see my worth. I wanted approval from her and if he was there all the better.

I went up to the old farm house all out of breath. I knocked on the door. I took a minute to catch my breath. Time passed I realized no-one has come to the door. I knocked again. I started rehearsing in my head what I would say when someone opened the door. But still no-one came.

I took my guitar and walked to the barn, maybe she was in there.

Nope. But what I did see was Miles. His shirt was off. He had a pitch fork in his hands and he was picking hay. All I could do was stare and stare some more. I hoped he never saw me. I was enjoying the view way too much. May Jesus forgive me, but that boy looked like a man to me. I could see he had done farm labour before by his muscular physic.

It's amazing how a minute can seem like an hour when you wish time could stop. It did resume. He noticed me. Smiled, waived and wiped the sweat from his brow.

"Hey, what's that? Do you play?" he said

"Yeah, I was hoping to show your mom." I said sheepishly.

"She's not here, went to get supplies, she wont be back until dark. Why don't you come up here and show me how you play. I could use a brake." he said and he motioned me up to the loft.

He didn't have to ask me twice.

I sat on a bail of hay. I put the guitar on my knee. Oh God, I had not thought this out, what if I forgot how to play?

I looked at him. Smile on his face, sky blue eyes, curls in his blond hair. I smiles. I started taping my foot, hoping, hoping Jesus or the devil would start my fingers moving.

Lost in the eyes of sky and curls of corn silk I didn't realize my hands had started until my voice joined in.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Well, baby, when times are bad,
Now call on me, darling, and I’ll come to you.
When you’re in trouble and feel so sad,
Well, call on me, darling, come on call on me, and I’ll help you.
Yeah!

A man and a woman have each other, baby,
To find their way in this world.
I need you, darling, like the fish needs the sea,
Don’t take your sweet, your sweet love from me.

Baby, when you’re down and feel so blue,
Well, no, you won’t drown, darling, I’ll be there too.
You’re not alone, I’m there too,
Whatever your troubles, honey, I don’t care.

A man and a woman have each other, baby,
To find their way in this world.
I need you, darling, like the fish needs the sea,
Don’t take your sweet, sweet love from me!

Please! So baby, when times are bad,
Call on me, darling, just call on me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I stopped. I looked in his eyes for approval.

"Janis, my mother loves, Janis. She would have loved it. I grew up listening to her records over and over again, I am surprised you knew her music here."

He seemed genuinely happy.

I smiled. " I meet Janis when I was little. She sang to me in the park when I was lost one day. Well I knew where I was, they just didn't. I lived with my mother in a commune in San Francisco. I only moved here when I was 4 or 5. It is a blur sometimes. Time all but stopped when I moved here."

"That old lady lived on a commune in San Fransisco!" he was truly shocked.

"Ha ha ha. NO! She is my grandmother. They came and took me away from my mother. I was born on Bob Dylan's birthday, too. This, I always though, meant I was born into music. " I replied, trying hard to impress, without looking like I was. I knew I really want; born on Dylan's birthday, but I might have been, it made a good story, though.

"I was at Woodstock." He said with a sly smile trying to one up me.

"Me too." I replied with the same sly smile.

"We are more alike than I ever would have known." he said with a laugh.

This explains a lot. I thought to myself. He grew up like me. Well, if I didn't get taken away from my home.

"Do you play?" I asked.

"No. No talent. I listen, I am an expert at listening to music. I thought I would try to find a job in that when I get older. " he smiled.

We talked and laughed and I sang until sundown.

"Oh damn, my mother will be home soon. Come back tomorrow, my mother will be gone again. I will make you some lemonade and you can play for me again." He said.

"O.k." I said and picked up my stuff.

Quickly he pecked my lips. "See you tomorrow. And don't mention that you came to my home to anyone or that we kissed, o.k.?"

"Why?" I was thrown by the last statement.

"They wouldn't understand, Anyhow I don't want you teased more at school. See you tomorrow."

All night long all I could think about was the kiss. I didn't eat. I just dreamt. Head in the clouds is still a fog blinding you, just higher and more pleasurable.

I think I found someone who gets me.

~~~

This thing called love I just can't handle it
this thing called love I must get round to it
I ain't ready
Crazy little thing called love
This (This Thing) called love
(Called Love)
It cries (Like a baby)
In a cradle all night
It swings (Woo Woo)
It jives (Woo Woo)
It shakes all over like a jelly fish,
I kinda like it
Crazy little thing called love
There goes my baby
She knows how to Rock n' roll
She drives me crazy
She gives me hot and cold fever
Then she leaves me in a cool cool sweat
I gotta be cool relax, get hip
Get on my track's
Take a back seat, hitch-hike
And take a long ride on my motor bike
Until I'm ready
Crazy little thing called love
I gotta be cool relax, get hip
Get on my track's
Take a back seat, hitch-hike
And take a long ride on my motor bike
Until I'm ready (Ready Freddie)
Crazy little thing called love
This thing called love I just can't handle it
this thing called love I must get round to it
I ain't ready
Crazy little thing called love