10_letters prompt #2 Ambition (for myreckoning)
Frankie-
Once upon a time, I heard someone talking about me in a party. "Toben Burke has a great ambition, but no sense of himself." I remember standing and watching this woman-plastic, silicone, dyed hair, botoxed face... and wondering how any woman who was so fake could talk about someone ELSE not having a sense of themselves. She was inauthentic and yet I found myself worrying that she might be right. That perhaps I didn't have a sense of myself, and I was simply riding out my own ambition to the bitter end.
The next day, I called you, disheartened and overthinking everything about my own life. I was tired, alone, depressed. I was horribly upset that I was letting one (stupid) person's opinion of me cloud all of the good things happening in my life. Your voice, velvet and vodka, granite and roses all at once... your voice soothed something in me. I never explained why I had been upset, or even that I was, but I knew you knew. Just as you knew I understood when you were upset as well.
"Tell me I know who I am," I said, and without hesitation you did. Not in those words, not mockingly or parroting back, but you said the perfect words. Words that cut and soothed, words that hurt and healed. Words that brought everything into sharp focus.
That's when you became my ambition. My muse. My lover, without ever having touched you. Because you knew, you saw, you understood. Because you gave me what I needed most. Reality without bullshit.
Two days later, I signed the first band to Jericho. I don't think I've ever properly thanked you for that. For giving me the strength to move on past that moment of self-doubt.
Thank you. Sincerely.
-Toben
Once upon a time, I heard someone talking about me in a party. "Toben Burke has a great ambition, but no sense of himself." I remember standing and watching this woman-plastic, silicone, dyed hair, botoxed face... and wondering how any woman who was so fake could talk about someone ELSE not having a sense of themselves. She was inauthentic and yet I found myself worrying that she might be right. That perhaps I didn't have a sense of myself, and I was simply riding out my own ambition to the bitter end.
The next day, I called you, disheartened and overthinking everything about my own life. I was tired, alone, depressed. I was horribly upset that I was letting one (stupid) person's opinion of me cloud all of the good things happening in my life. Your voice, velvet and vodka, granite and roses all at once... your voice soothed something in me. I never explained why I had been upset, or even that I was, but I knew you knew. Just as you knew I understood when you were upset as well.
"Tell me I know who I am," I said, and without hesitation you did. Not in those words, not mockingly or parroting back, but you said the perfect words. Words that cut and soothed, words that hurt and healed. Words that brought everything into sharp focus.
That's when you became my ambition. My muse. My lover, without ever having touched you. Because you knew, you saw, you understood. Because you gave me what I needed most. Reality without bullshit.
Two days later, I signed the first band to Jericho. I don't think I've ever properly thanked you for that. For giving me the strength to move on past that moment of self-doubt.
Thank you. Sincerely.
-Toben