Chicken - A Song For Karla Smith

Karla was an amazing, vivacious, wild, and troubled force of nature. She was both beautiful and intelligent, and a truly gifted writer. I met her in Madison, WI in 1998, and we dated and lived together briefly. On January 13, 2003 Karla Smith's light was sadly extinguished by a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. Although our time together was brief, my time with Karla is one of my most cherished memories. The following is a song I wrote for her just before we parted in 1998. This is how I remember Karla...


CHICKEN (A Song For Karla Smith)

Something in the way you light a pillow,
The way you look, especially when you read.
The way you laugh, or talk when your friends call you—
To know you is to know the joy in me...

I see you in my sleep, and upon waking,
I think of you all day, and I am sad;
I worry 'bout the way our love is shaping,
And worry 'bout my strength to keep you near.

Cause I don't know what you need, or if you need me.
And I don't want to chain you to a lie—
But I am glad we got to know each other,
Oh, cause I'm a better man inside, somehow...

Oh, I have known ten-thousand righteous causes
And I have watched them all burn to the ground.
And I can say they made me none the wiser;
But they were mine—as you are mine right now.

And I love you as I've loved nothing ever,
Ever in my life, that's come before—
But this unpleasantness has come between us;
Is it possible that our love can survive?

And Karla, I don't claim to know the answer
To anything you might be searching for.
And if I could, I'd love you girl, forever—
But will I become a victim of your pride?

'Cause I can't claim that I have all the answers
To anything you might be searching for,
And if you'd ask, I'd go from you forever;
But I'd hope your loving touch would stay right here...

So paint a fractured smile upon my windows,
You're a kind of joy I just can't bear!
I wish I could stay with you forever:
I can't claim to know you, but I care.

There are realms within imbued with such emotion,
And places deep, that no word can describe.
There is peace beyond expressing when I'm with you,
Everything you are, gives depth to life.