Could you just close your eyes
and walk back through your childhood memories?
The warmest, most fond memories you've had.
Walk through the place just as it was the last time you left it.
You can practically
feel the sun on your face,
hear the waves crashing on the rocky shore,
smell the pines on the hill.
So enveloped in the scenery inside your head that you lose all track of what is going on around you...
but since we all know that nothing gold can stay
and all too often our best memories fade,
I will work tenfold to retain every snippet of every day.

Who would've thought you could melt me like this.
Just from the steady sound of your voice in my ears...
It's as though the hands of the clock stay suspended right where they lie
until I glance back again
to see that the rest of the world kept moving
while I became so content to be still and take you in.

I don't know that I've ever been so taken aback,
just to stumble across a hidden lake so deep.
I can't believe that I've set up so many hurdles....
so many obstacles near the shores that I keep.

I don't know how to call off my own guards.
How to send them packing, how to push them away.
Because this water looks so calm and cool.
And there is nothing more I want than to walk purposely toward the edge
and dive smoothly into those depths.

Maybe I can let myself believe that this is different.
I am different.
You are different.
Maybe things will never be the same.
But the most terrifying part to me...
Is that maybe that is the way I really want it to be.

Don't do it.
You are not the same as those people.
You can't just let it go.
You know better.
It's why you hesitate.
You know it will go wrong.
You will get wrapped up.
You will sabotage yourself.
You will allow your mind to run free while your body stays fettered by your own insecurities.
You will over think this.
You will run away.

I drove away today.
I left in haste to begin my fervent quest for my happy place.
Took the top down and turned my face to the sun.
Sought hope in the expanse of cornfields and trees attempting to bud and bloom.
Finding small comforts in the curvature of an old and ornate window frame set into walls of beautiful vintage masonry.
Breathe in deep the solace I feel in this small town.
On the road to Saline, no one knows me, but I feel like I have long known them.
Spent a good ten minutes pouring out my heart to an empty grave stone...
As if my audible prayer would be heard by the long past occupants of my family tree.
As if saying it out loud for the first time to a slab of engraved granite would do me any good.
I turn on the radio and search for answers in the random shuffle of songs.
Give myself up to the Radio God and wait to hear my message hidden in between the notes and words.
Someone send me some sort of ray of light...
Glimmer of hope that this is not all that will be.
Universe, please just throw me a rope.

I'm upside down and flipped every which way. Like a pair of tennis shoes in the dryer, I keep crashing against these walls making a veritable ruckus.
I don't know how to let you in. Sometimes I want to bring you inside, like a weary traveller at my door, away from the assault of a winter storm. Though oft I feel like a small scared animal... Letting you touch me is the furthest thing from my mind, my thoughts clouded over with the heavy haze of survival.  
I can't seem to make up my mind about this. It would just be easier to stay a free bird.
I could just keep flying down those country roads, wind whipping at my face... The only way I remember to feel real.
I should just let you in. Let you take my hand and take you with me on my journey.
But for now I'll fly up to the tallest treetop and survey life down below me.
It's always much easier to watch than to ever join the fray.

Pillow sought
After wars fought
After lost thoughts

Here again
my dear old friend
Our meetings are oft too rushed

I've gotten away
With spending the rest of my day
In places I ought not be.

Ignore the most obvious,
The dark and the flaws in us
And I'll just let my heart race
in spite of these.

I cannot deny that I enjoy the solace of a silent cigarette.
No one expects you to converse, to engage.
No need for a reason to be alone and still, aimless.
For once I owe no one am explanation about why I don't want to interact  
From light, to smoke, to ash
I build my wall.