The urge to run away to a seaside town,
To let the salt air peel the paint from the front of my house.

The urge to settle, to let it sink in, to decorate my front porch.
The urge to let my mind rest and work until my back's sore.

The urge to love you
And to be well.

In that salt air town,
Where everyone knows my name.
Most importantly,
The urge to throw it all away.

You forget.

You forget things
when you're truly sad.

Not the toaster on or the door unlocked,
Not the name of your ex,
Or the name of that guy you met last week.

Instead,
You forget deeply.

You forget how your dog looks at you,
And how much love he deserves.
How your mum's journey was harder than yours,
and how your brothers were too young
to be treated so old.  

You forget,
How your dad is aging 10 years
in the span of 1,
And how you've not been loving
who you need to.

You forget
almost everything,
because you're trying...
really trying,
just to stay alive.


And if you're (un?)lucky enough
to crawl away from the pits
of depression...

You suddenly remember.
It SLAPS you in the face
when you're left alone with your thoughts.

"How could I be so selfish?"

"How?"

"HOW?"

The guilt,
The guilt.
The guilt of forgetting how to care for others,
Of leaving so much destruction in your wake

Is
almost,
Just...
almost,

Enough to make you
Forget.

I've stopped writing the way I used to,
because I've stopped feeling the way I used to.

I can't write the same,
my mind's changed quite a bit.  
I've gotten much older, you see.
I'm the not the same I used to be.

People are not all kind, wandering, lost souls
as I once liked to believe.
Life was happier then,
innocent.

Rural dirt roads bring me quiet joy,
they remind me of my childhood
but they're not realistic, are they?  

The world cannot be all beautiful trees
and unkept dirt roads.

We must advance.
We must get used to highways and airports and cities.

They world is growing,
7 billion people, is it?
The time of innocence is gone.

Conor Oberst said
"I want a lover I don't have to love.
I want a girl who's too sad to give a ****."
And I'm sorry I think it's romantic
to be that girl.
I'm sorry I'm so bad at changing.
I'm sorry I can't love you more.
I have to leave, because the outcome of us is always this:
broken phones, empty bottles,
and endless drives at four am
when we both aren't taking
because we can't talk without screaming.

I'm sorry I'm too sad to give a ****.
I always told you I hated beginnings because beginnings have an end.
You're the most beautiful thing to ever happen to me.
This is the end.
I'm sorry.

You have every right to be scared.
They will all break your heart
and your heart is not a bone.

It does not get stronger every time.

This is how we say goodbye.
I haven’t seen you cry since your aunt died last May.
I wish my eyes could stay dry for you.
I promise I’ll stop talking about drowning.
I don’t know how to be in love
when I only trust you enough to *******.

This is how we say goodbye.
You’re so completely lovely when you cry.
You’re not screaming you love me when I need you to.
I’m whispering I have to go.

This is how we say goodbye.
You’ll find her. She’ll have perfect hands,
and the softest voice. She’ll never date boys
who grab her waist a little too rough
and never walk her to her door.
I love her for how happy she makes you.