i have dreams. i have a lot of dreams. i have things i want to achieve and goals i've worked my whole life towards. and i've done a pretty okay job of achieving a lot of things i put my mind to and my heart in. but when i'm standing up there on stage i look out into a crowd of strangers. i search for familiarity but i'm met with faces that i don't recognize, hands that come together to clap for me but hearts that are cold. there is no joy when there is no joy shared. there is no success if there is no success shared. i search the crowds and peer down from the mountain but you are not there. i traveled years to reach here but lost my companions on the way. they say it is lonely on the top, they forget to tell you that it is lonelier on the way down. there is no going back.

Like pulling a rabbit
from an old black hat

you pull another life
from that flask

a magician
never reveals their secrets

and they never
produce real magic.

This black jacket
will fade as I do

and these old shoes
will age with me.

On the 1:28 a.m. train
all that have left to ride west
are the night shifts
high on coffee and hope
the lonely rock climbers
with caves under their eyes
and the young lovers
too late to stay out
too early to say goodbye.

Before
you fall
asleep,

count the
reasons
you'll wake up

even if
there's only one,
now you have a reason.

Every writer has penned themselves
the last on the train, the empty diner
even when we aren't that alone.

I will always be
acceptable and
yet comfortably
disappointing.

it is in the in betweens
when your memory is
most real to me.
airplanes and 3AMs
in moments when i forget
who i really am.

cue confusion, cue pain
cue the struggle to remember
where i am and when i came.

my hands shake and i itch to
press the button with your name
i need to tell you that i am once again
in the in-between
asking (begging) you to
take me back as your queen.