The grass is greener on my side,
this time
and it's freshly mowed,
releasing its scent into the noses
of the kids running up and down the streets,
screaming their praises to the god of summer,
and begging for just a little bit more time.
Steam rising from the burning pavement,
the smell of cookouts
the warm air
springing life to the city around me.

Riding in my car with all the windows down
screaming along to Say Anything
and feeling alive with the glory of love.
All of this creeping up on me
surprising me with its inviting grin,
everything is funny now
because all of this
always leads me
straight back
to you.

I dig my toes into the cold dark dirt
thinking to myself these words
that could never encompass
the taste of the atmosphere around me,
finally wrapping itself in a flannel blanket.
I feel like a broken record
scratching at the same chorus,
trying adjectives to describe the way
today smells like better times,
but I'm determined
and I'll keep trying
to make these times even better.

You finally called me,
after four years.
You said it was the only number
you had ever committed to memory,
and you were wondering if it was still
connected to me on the other side.
As it rang in my unsteady palms,
I thought to myself about how
you probably still cuff your Levi's
so that they hang above your
black and white Janoski's,
and write songs about lovers,
cruising the streets
listening to our favorite band,
that I only fell in love with
after you left.

You talked just like you did back then,
gently and sweetly,
and I was scared
because I knew how you used to
pull me in and never let me go.
We spoke about our separate lives,
and you said you didn't write anymore,
and it turns out
you only knew one album
by that favorite band
all along.
You told me you were happy.

I think we stayed together
out of fear, because
it felt like home,
and who wants to be homeless?
So I guess I'm still in love
with the old you
the thought of you
the person I could vent to
and I compare everyone I meet
to the person you were
before your taillights escaped east
into the New England fog.

There's so much of me
to give away
and so much of me
you know nothing about.
I met you when I was broken
and was well aware
that I could lose myself in you.
I sat all night in your passenger seat
watching you slave away,
cleaning every inch of the blackest night,
with the darkness somehow
smelling sweeter than before
and swallowing us whole.

But I never once thought to fall asleep
because I think
I was too busy falling for you.
I was content just seeing
you hop in and out
of the driver's seat
Swimming deep in your atmosphere,
wishing your rough hands
were tracing my spine
instead of flicking switches
that were carrying us closer
and closer
to the daylight.

Sink your fingertips
deep into my chest
plucking at my heart strings
one by one,
writing a symphony
with my veins and arteries.
I wish I could write down
my words as the melody
to your saccharine lullabies
that rock me to sleep.
You could be my muse,
if I can be yours.

The breezes of spring
bellowing pitches from low to high
whipping through my tresses
that keep me warm inside,
giving movement to the rope swing out back.
A rotting apple nearby
(probably not ours)
and that bench in it's place with stories to tell,
where we spent sunsets
perched and burnt.
It all brings me back.

My eyes starting to water from smoke,
squinting through the hazy air
at the overcrowded couch - a war veteran
sitting proud in the center of the room,
holding up the unforgiving weight of teenage angst.
Visible scars,
a testament to its years served,
memories fixed with duct tape.
And I, sitting on the edge of a wooden dining room chair,
began to wonder how we all ended up in these places -
the couch, the youth,
the stains in the carpet,
the fly on the window sill
trapped between the panes,
unbothered and unnoticed.
I tipped my head back and ran my fingers
through my thinning hair,
closing my eyes to catch a glimpse
of tomorrow morning.

We were all younger
dumber
naïve
but the purest we would ever be.
Now I'm flying down 87
and I have to train my mind
not to wander without purpose
so I try to remind myself
that I've been back to those rooftops,
and I know
the air will never sink in as sweet
as when we were whole,
in years lost to the breezes of spring.

People around me communicate
in words and with fidgets
all of which I feel like
I don’t understand
and I want it all to be quiet.
I grow tired of this world around me.
It always finds ways to **** at my soul
like I owe it some kind of retribution.
I fall in love
and fall out just as quickly.

But I’m used to it –
Patience rubbed raw
from years of bad luck and disappointment
leaving me bruised and tired,
and always ready for the next bout of bad news.

I want to love you so bad,
but can I?
It’s been so long
and I’m not sure I remember how.
I know you’re tired,
showboat with all your
peddles and organs.
The years between us,
with your crooked smile from before-
when the air felt darker around me,
colored a deep shade
of midnight blue.

You’re so sweet,
sleeping in my passenger seat
and there’s makeup wiped on
my baseball cap
and I’m sore,
in so many ways.

I want peace for you,
every piece of you.
Close your heavy eyes and
peel off your layers.
Take a deep breath,
and take a sip from my
lip gloss-stained coffee cup
or sleep deeply instead
on the way
driving you home.

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.