2nd Place | “Blue Gingham Dress”

2nd Place

“Blue Gingham Dress”
Jay Colombo
Mt. Baldy, California

A blue gingham dress, etched in my brain
A tattoo on her elbow and depth to her pain
She sat smoking a cigarette, scoping the band
And she passed me a PBR she’d smuggled in
And that won my heart there and then

Well I didn’t get her number, or even last name
But she told me she ran away from home at sixteen
Chasing methamphetamine, drinking to drown
But she made it through rehab, where her brother is now
Working on his second time around
Well it’s a sweet starry summer night’s beautiful mess
And a sad stranded angel, in a blue gingham dress

While her cousin and best friend snuck off to a room
I rolled her a smoke and she told me how she’d been abused
By her grandpa, when she was just four
And how pissed she was for being left at the bar
With me searching for signs, that I might yet caress
The soft cheek of the sad-hearted girl, in a blue gingham dress

She does the books for her father, hates all the math
Skates on the edge of her own crooked path
And she’s waiting another half hour or so,
Then she’s ditching those bitches and driving back home
So there isn’t much time for me to confess
My weakness for a sad-hearted girl, in a blue gingham dress

Well the band finished playing, so I walked her out
To her car thinking this might lead out of a drought
When her cousin and best friend walked out the front door
She stormed off into darkness, calling both of them whores
All that’s left is my prayer, may God ever bless
A sad-hearted girl, in a blue gingham dress