Something amazing happened last week
For a moment I felt what it was like to be young again
With my memories I can never quite get there

But I try

I’ll close my eyes when I eat a chipwich
it tastes like running back to our beach umbrella with sticky fingers
the summer we rented a cottage in Montauk
I long for the itchy feeling of sand in my bathing suit
and for the salt to sting my eyes again

That would be heaven
But I still throw the wrapper away in the stainless steel trash can
beneath the sink in my apartment
that is exactly two hundred miles and twenty three years from Ditch Plains

It hurts sometimes
to remember how much I have forgotten
When we had dance parties to the Austin Powers soundtrack
When watching mom get dressed
and waiting for the babysitter
and kissing you goodbye
and chicken nuggets for dinner
was the best feeling in the world
Because I knew I could always expect
the smell of your coffee in the morning
those days when we lived in the red house on Craft Avenue.

But last week
in the backseat of a friend’s car
driving back to Boston after a long hike
I watched the gray forest pass by outside my window
and I fought to keep my eyes open
I was no longer thirty-five
I knew the moment would come when I would be lifted out of my car seat
and brought inside
where you would light a fire
and mom would make hot chocolate for us
And later we would eat homemade popcorn and watch Titanic
as our winter boots lay on their sides in the front hall
the snow between the treads slowly melting and darkening the wood floor

I felt very safe inside that car
the kind that only a child on the brim of sleep can feel
I don’t know if I will feel that way again
But I will still close my eyes when I eat a chipwich
and wait for the smell of your coffee in the morning

Can you see me?
Can you hear me?
                           What do I have to do?
They say be yourself,but what if I am still figuring that out?
Could I not be the wind,powerful,able to embrace who I want
and blow away the ones that curse my gale.
I want to be cared for and loved...
No more pleading with my eyes and body.
Aching inside (it hurts,tears fall).
Maybe I am destined to be alone...
but that is to cruel.
Can anyone see my potential and my goodness?
I have so much to give,is it wrong that I want to receive also.
I thirst and hunger for love.
Just wish they could see me,
the real me.

When a heart shatters
And you glue it back together
Piece by piece
It will never be the same
No matter how hard you try
Visible cracks are left behind

My life is caught in confusion
I'm full of delusions
Don't know what I'm doing
I'm full of excuses

What is the use of it all?
Will I fail will I fall?
Will I walk will I crawl?
And if I don't love
what's it matter at all?

If I've failed the subtleties of this
A tender smile, a tender kiss
Failed to love
Renders this existence
Overwhelmingly useless

So hold me strong
We'll go on
There'll be a point
Where we move on from
Bitterness, feeling careless
like nothing ever mattered less

Just waiting for the start
A dying of self
I'm sick of never caring about
somebody else
To the extent to which my friends
Look like everyone else

And my family's gone where?
I don't know
They're in limbo
Right now though
It's cold and it's dark
It doesn't feel like home

I've got to stay true
To what I set out to do
Which in hindsight I conclude
I haven't got a clue
Just something better for you
Any of you.
I want to be the one to say
You didn't go where I've got to

If I ever get where I want to be,
I'd like to be forgotten,
To never be recognized;
To just exist without an existence...
So that I can feel alive where I stand
With every breath, sound, touch;
So that I can witness the world
In all it's entirety
Without standing behind a screen of an identity...
To taste the colors with my eyes
And appreciate the eternity of the world
Without a barrier of an illusioned existence--
*For I won't exist any more,
And all barriers would, therefore, have been forfeit..

I wish there was a reset button,
To be pressed every time someone left,
A 'restore factory settings'
To enable after every heartbreak,
For it seems,
Everyone that plays with this shameless heart,
Takes away a little something,
Never leaving it whole, and not nearly the same,
It's almost like it has to learn how to beat all over again,
It beats to a tune,
And tunes can't handle a lot of resets

Come on out,
We are friends
You've fought demons for so long,
Am I beginning to look like one?
You are a closed door,
With a terrified child inside,
I am a gentle knock,
A friend on the other side,
I'm begging you to let me in,
But you just continue to hide,
It's going to get darker, love,
The demons will eat you raw,
What will I do then?
Knowing I should have tried once more,
So you can scream and pant,
Throw all the hissy fits you can,
I'll be here

I wish I was more than what I turned out to be,
I wish I was who they always wanted me to be
another lie in this sea of corpses hanging on to each other,
without any dreams or sight,
I wish I was as dark as night,
so they could see the flaws in every light,
I wish there was no need to pretend that I am no one yet,
but they know not to forget,
what they once wanted me to be,
I wish I was free in this world locked in chains and scars,
I wish I wasn't a machine and had a heart,
that everything was more beautiful than how they claim,
those empty words that fall down on my conscience like winters rain,
forming icicles that dangle over my head waiting for me to speak,
I wish I was weak,
so I could give in to their desire and leave,
tear a hole in my head and bleed
away
every thought they want to ******
I wish I was young again,
so I could be afraid of the things beneath my bed,
instead of the voices inside my head,
I wish I was dead,
so they could stop counting my every breath,
I am not what I have always pretended to be,
I am too cold and they are too old,
to see,
beyond the rainbow where colours still dance in peace,
I wish I could leave,
I wish I could breathe,
in this hollow they call my home,
I'm so alone,
wandering inside my head all alone,
I wish I could mourn but I won't,
it is I who chose not to wage war on the strangers,
that have made me a prisoner within my own skin,
I wish I wasn't always burning,
for I cannot feel the pain no more.

I haven't stopped dreaming about you
I wish I could
each night you sneak into my dreams
tip toe in and take control
we share a dance or a kiss
and I fall in love with you a little more

But I wake up sad and confused
because although you choose to be mine
in this far off world that is my dream
I know you don't remember dreams
you never have
so every morning you have no recollection
of the love we shared

So you go on with your life
giving your love to other people
giving your love to her

But you will never know
how much love I have given you

My bones click
As I tediously live
day in and day out
through every gasp of breath
shocking my dyspeptic nerve endings
As the clock stares me down
With no escape
I know how this ends
Fall leaves bring
Winters of snow
In a continuous cycle
Playing in my head