My words always move faster
than my fingers,
so there's usually
no way for me to describe
the feeling that rests
in the silence between songs
booming from your car stereo.
But I guess
I would call it:
empty.

The loneliest you can be
is when you're the only one
on the road
at two in the morning.
And so you scream to your songs
just to fill up the space
between you
and the rest of the world.

In the quiet moments
I think about all the things
I would have done
if I wasn't so scared,
and all the times
I did those things,
and it turned out
afterwards
I was still scared.

I don't want to die alone,
I truly don't.
Though I scoff at the human race
and use the only strength in my bones
for hatred and beg the world
to erase my every mistake -
deep down I crave the brush
of a finger on my cheek
and the blood rushing through my vessels
closest to the surface.

Hopelessly indebted to
the fleeting feeling of fluttering
the butter on a summer day,
and I bloom.
I guess I love love,
and I would take it like a drug,
I love love;
I just don't love the side effects.
If I'm thinner,
it's because I leave a piece of myself
with every person I meet,
with every place I set roots.
My love rivals the Coliseum,
larger than life and utterly broken.

So I'm always ask for two things:
someone(thing) and the billboard from god
that I can finally be done searching
and I don't have to feel so lonely
anymore.

You're always forging me,
to see how far I'll bend.
Hammering me down,
to see how low I can go.
Your heat dances close to me,
but I can't let everyone down.

Though you terrify me,
I would probably still let you cradle me
in your cast iron vice grip
and sing me to sleep,
like Louis
like Ella
crooning,
when I can't breathe.
You could reel me back in
with the promise of
creating something beautiful
and maybe not feeling so
empty and alone
all the time,
but I can't let everyone down.

Your atmosphere ***** at me
and I'm dragging my feet through your sludge,
plodding forward with my eyes cast down.
You know when my mind wanders
or when I'm filling my voids,
so you can sneak in through the cracks
and take your place in my subconscious,
but I can't let everyone down.

I try to remind myself
why your comfort isn't worth it;
like peaking out of my blinds
or chatting with insulation
(pushing me towards one last line)
or fearing the world outside
altogether.
I'm scared because I know
that you're the only thing
that has ever felt like home to me,
but I can't let everyone down.
I can't let everyone down.

I had a panic attack in an American Eagle dressing room recently.
As I sobbed quietly
and begged my racing heart
to please slow the **** down,
I listened to the chatter in the adjacent stalls;
other girls proclaiming their depression because
that top did not come in their size.
My mother stood
on the other side
of the locked door, suggesting
that I just
"stop."

While I struggled to catch my breath,
my mother went out to the floor,
feeling the need to tell the tale
of her poor daughter who lost everything
to the sales clerks and managerial staff.
They brought me water
and a cookie
and cleared out
the dressing room.
It's too bad that my demons didn't really give a ****
about their kind gestures.

Eventually, I was able to **** in air long enough
to call out to my mother and tell her
I needed to go home now, please.
I hid my face from the customers in the store
casting condemning looks in my direction.
I was ashamed, because I knew
everyone else knew
and I never want
people seeing me
like that.
But,
at least we got
a 50% discount.

I feel like I owe this to you,
even though I don't know your last name.
I don't know how you smile
when he tells you that you're beautiful,
and I don't know how you feel inside
when you're both laying in bed at night
after he takes what he doesn't deserve.
I don't know how you'll react
when you're finally honest with yourself
and realize that he is a prizefighter
and being with him is like a boxing match,
that you won't win without a struggle.
And every time the bell sounds
you'll be less and less equip to defend yourself
the longer you allow him
to keep ******* at
your sense of self.

So let me be your cutman,
wiping the sweat from your brow
and strongly suggesting you forfeit;
because eventually
his charisma and charm
will seem like a distant memory
and you'll forget
why you started this fight at all.
I guess I'm just trying to say
get out with your integrity intact,
while you still can,
and I hope
you never have to feel
the way I felt.

I hate the fact that
you ruined so many things for me.
Every album you played
while I drove you home
(which made me late for work)
while you showered
(to avoid apologizing)
while I was slowly waking up
(much earlier than preferred)
make up the soundtrack
to every awful thing you made me do.

I hate that when the air outside
feels like fall disguised as spring,
it smells like you laying beside me
bottoming out after a night of Jameson
and me still awake from the previous morning,
dialing the numbers to emergency responders.

I hate that black coffee and marb reds
taste like your mouth
and take me right back
to that bathroom where I hid,
waiting for you to fall asleep,
because you wouldn't let me
sleep in my own ******* bed.

I hate that
I probably still love you
after all you put me through.

Regret rides shotgun,
more often than not,
with this endlessly restless soul.
And impulsivity is the worst kind of backseat driver
while disappointment tilts it's seat back
and waits patiently
for my next big mistake.

I've been thinking a lot
about the past,
and retracing my steps
to find a younger version of myself,
basking in the uncertainty of the future -
with all the conviction of an attorney
delivering the closing statement
that will undoubtedly win the case.
Because
a younger me,
naïve and untouched,
knew something I don't
about what it means to be content.

So as I steer myself and my gripes,
into what looks like a ditch,
I'll wrap my fist around the hope
that's still somehow dangling
from my rearview mirror.