A Pocket of Holes and the Operator's Coil

When you held out your hands full of seamstress' tools
your pins sort of comforted me
So I gave you my heart made of patches and holes
this tender, stoney, rather cumbersome thing
You had paint on your arm and scrubs on
so I wondered were you a nurse or a sewer or painter?
Either way, I didn't mind for I knew I would find
that you'd save or create me or stitch me much greater
I'm young, though not in love, so pick one from above;
early morning or midnight or evening
Meet me there if you're able at some coffee shop table
and we'll talk like old friends before leaving
We'll go our separate ways for like 10 or 12 days
until I grow tired of conversing with an empty passenger seat
Then I'll call from some bar chair in some town called somewhere
and summarize the somethings I sometimes have seen

You'll say, "hey sweet boy, it's good to hear your voice" 
from the home side of the operator's coil
I'll wonder why I ever left your side for a wandering road and this lonesome life
for a pocket of holes and these sleepless nights

I'll sit up 'till 5am down in the lobby again
watching the clerk sell rooms to men by the hour
Then I'll walk up the stairs to what's my home, temporarily
just to laugh at all the stains atop the sheets and the shower
Tonight I'll stand in the stage lights like I do every night
mumbling the lines like I've done so oft' before
to maybe 26 kids, a cop and bartender,
a rat and some roaches and whate'er else approaches the dimly lit floor
Then I'll call you from the streets of Chicago
outside a diner in the far north side
Where I'll notice the tears in the jeans that I wear
and wish that you were here to mend them tonight
or make sense of what's left of my life

This voice tells me I'll make it if I just keep doing what I am
and though I'm freezing in some parking lot, I lie that I believe him
I peddle off what I own in failed attempt to keep going
living in a cage in exchange for momentary freedom
All the doctors and the lawyers and the sinners and saints
say I have chosen a way that isn't easy
Still I'll cough up my blood from screaming more than I should
and stagger on in hope that soon someone will receive me
Babe, I'm a gamble but not a gambling man
So take your chances on taking a chance on me
I may be gone for awhile through the ditches and miles
I'm lost but know that you've never lost me
Don't forget you swore to never forget me