and I can sing the blues so well...

There are always those people you meet that are lonely.
When I first met her for the second time, I could tell that she was lonely, and I feel bad now for not trying to fix her better. You always think that someone else will do that part; the fixing.
You could look into her eyes and know she was falling apart, even though she wouldn't admit it. She wouldn't confess about cocaine or nitrous oxide...but she gave me clues.
"I sat in front of my old house the other day," she told me, when she was generous. "I smoked a pack of cigarettes and cried the whole time." I thought about that. I even tried it once. I tried smoking a pack of cigarettes, and crying. I got three cigarettes deep and realized I was a jackass. I don't have enough sadness in me to do that. I am, most of the time, a truly happy person.

She cut her hair, and disappeared.

I saw her several months later with a much older man, and I wonder if she will ever be happy. I wonder how much her father damaged her by just not loving her enough. How much any of our fathers damage us, and how blessed I am to have the father that I have and have had.
I went through a phase of being angry with my parents (I never thought I'd do that, but I'm just a teenage dirt bag baby...) and at the end of it, I realized that it wasn't my parents that screwed me up. I did that myself because I had nothing else to be angry about.