Message in a Bottle
She found a message in a bottle
It wasn’t what she thought it’d be
Her foot was on the throttle
And the bottle on her knee
Just around the corner and the other day
She was sweet and seventeen
Hometown heartthrob on her way.
A vision they called a teenage dream.
She caught the wandering eye
Of a barely-married man
His eyes were blue as the bluest sky
He promised her the Promised Land
She became another statistic
Just like her parents warned
Alone, afraid at the clinic
Where they keep the unborn unborn
Haunted by the memories
Of loves she found and lost
A broken heart and bended knees
She buckled beneath the cross
Jack Daniels was the only man
She trusted anymore
He steadied her unsteady hand
Left her passed out on the floor
There in mindless sleep she’d find
Hours of dreamless rest
She’d wake but with no peace of mind
To a broken life and another mess
“Where have you got to, girl?
Where on earth have you been?
You had in your smile an entire world
And you lost it in a damn fool’s grin.â€
The gravel spat from the spinning tire
The shrapnel of a wasted life
The girl who once set hearts afire
Every man’s darlin’ but no man’s wife
One last flight against the damned, dark night
Daddy always said someday she’d fly
Like he always did, he got it right
He forgot to say that’s how she’d die
She found a message in a bottle
It wasn’t what she thought it’d be
Her foot was on the throttle
And the bottle on her knee