Passed this city and that one.
Passed familiar and unfamiliar and back to familiar again.
Tread on tired tires spinning and wheels spinning in my head.
Passed possible alien invasion and then arriving back at home.
Home?
And you'll remember the red dirt and the red cheery faces as onlookers tell you you're doing such a good thing and the red red red in our stomach telling us no, this isn't the way it should be.
Red stop lights keep you from returning south, impeding your movement, stuck in hot pavement, dust storming about as you search for what you found.
A glimmer of when the world was like cotton but our minds were clear.
You'll reach across yourself into the well of public opinion and pull out the mask of happy faces and walk on into your new life.
Forgetting joy.
And infinity.
And wine in chipped coffee cups and cigarettes bought in secret in the dead of night and songs that are too painful to bare and floors that feel like a feather bed and touches that leave no need for a heater and the joy that you forbid yourself from feeling.
And me.
Forget me, too.

You have your friends and your dog and your music and your ideas and your preconcieved notions and your stories of traveling and your haughty attitude and your concerned demeanor and your crossed arms and your slow speech and your raised eyebrows and your faith and your pointed fingers and your guilt trips and your certainty.
You look down with disdain and fear and satisfaction on your face, hoping (expecting?) to see me cower and shake at your gaze. Catching your eyes in mine and then faltering to stare at my feet and kick dirt maybe, like a child being punished.
And I all have is a cigarette and a swing. Trying not to roll my eyes as you break my life down into tiny little pieces, sifting through all the good and finding the tiny gold nuggets of sin that you can hold up to the sun and show all of your friends.
You see?
I told you it was never real.
I told you she never meant any of it.
She's happy for once and that's not ok.
It's not happy the way I want her to be.
It's a happy I'm not comfortable with, so it must be wrong.

I lose pens constantly.
Constantly.
At every second of every day, a pen I once owned is now in the hands of a stranger.
I wonder if they are appreciating it as they should.
If the pen gets to write love notes or encouraging words on sticky tabs or biology lectures or groceries or to-do lists or the signatures of celebrities or hearts on the hands of preteens.
Maybe my pen will be the one that signs some bill to end a war. Or begin one. It could write the next great speech. Or play. It could ignite a revolution. It could change the world.

I hope their hands aren't sweaty.

For crying out loud, can't I get some rest?
Can't I catch my breath?
Can't I let go, let live, leave alone, shut it out, call it quits, forgive?
Is it up to me to be haunted every night while you're left along on his chest?
Sleeping like a baby, head rising and falling to the beat within him.
Your breath rustling his chest hair and his fingers tracing invisible ones on your face.
Leave me out of it.
I want no part of your memories.
Or your sympathies.
Build a wall, put you behind it and me before it and keep it building ever higher until the clouds have to choose sides.
Give me the peace of knowing that you'll never want me again. And you'll always be free of me.
Because you were never mine to begin with.
So I can rest.