i still think of you every time i see a gold civic,
it drives by with a stranger behind the wheel,
and i hope you are doing well.
i wonder if there is something that still reminds you of me.

Failure,
The single word that defines me,
And it eats away at me,
Because that seven letter word is worse than sin,
From the perspective of the world.
Freedom,
Another seven letters that have been stated before,
Land of the free and the fight for freedom,
But what does that even mean anymore,
My life has never been more than a striving for perfection,
Chasing after something that can never be obtained,
My temptation, my tantalization,
The delightful piece of fruit that is out of reach for all but a few,
Says the words of a society where to be a success is to stand above the rest,
But how I covet the ability to taste the sweet juice of my victory,
But instead, everything has victory over me.
How can a concept defeat a person?
It acts like a virus,
Eating at my brain until it is mush,
Useless except in afflicting misery on my imagination.
Left trapped in my worst memories,
Reliving things that can never be changed.

Tell me the rules of your perceived reality,
So that I can live up to your expectation of me.
Because isn’t that what love is?
To sacrifice your own reality for a blend of the two?
To love is to sacrifice,
To sacrifice is to lose,
And to lose is to hurt.
But am I okay with the pain that results from love?
Yes, but only because I know.

I know that love is more than hurt,
I know that love is more than the feeling of it being ripped away,
Without care for you wanting to cling to it.
I know that love is more than constant giving,
Resulting in the emptiness that eats away,
When the night grows into morning.

If I love at my fiercest my heart with ache more,
But it will also be comforted more,
It will be.
It must be,
Otherwise it is all for not.

I’ll put my thoughts into notes,
Combinations of incongruous words,
Trying to piece together a feeling.
They slip through though.
Maybe if I write I’ll get closer to truth,
But all I receive are short poems.
They barely convey what’s falling apart inside my head,
Imagine screams,
Static,
Sobs,
Something that can’t quite be placed.
But I’ll build my collection,
Maybe one day the value will accrue,
Make all the wondering worth it.
Seems unlikely,
But that’s the problem with addiction,
You think it fills something,
All it does is remind you that you are empty.

She liked how the carpet felt,
Scratchy against her cheek,
And how its texture grounded her to reality
When her thoughts were sweeping her away.

She sought after the smell of salt water and sand,
One deep breath in through the nose,
And her anxiety would slowly subside
As she listened to wave after wave crash against the shore.

She lost herself in soundtracks and sonatas,
The mournful requiems,
And the notes guided her along
To understanding the emotions she couldn’t put into words.

She collected novel after novel,
A colorful bouquet of covers and the crisp black of the text,
And she could never part with them
Because they painted pictures better than her eyes did.

She coveted the taste of hot coffee,
Sipped slowly and purposefully,
And how it forced her to take time for herself
Despite her propensity to skip the present in favor of the future.