The highway becomes your friend at sixteen and at seventeen it’s no different; your source of freedom, even for a short amount of time.
Twenty minutes speeding down that pavement can feel like an eternity of endless opportunities. Behind the wheel you'll feel nothing but endless hope.
Your chains are gone and replaced with glorious wings.
You always dreamed of flying.

“I’m tired of the same routine. I’m tired of the same faces. Lonely Ohio does no good to a spirit that’s been broken and a heart that’s been bent. So I'll take this fast lane until I find solace.”

Suddenly you're eighteen, freedom has new meaning. Blaring music and windows down, still in search of that invisible solace.
That highway has become your best friend through the days.

You hit the brakes and blink, nineteen and twenty never seemed so confusing.
Your mind feels like a traffic jam, red tail lights blinding you as you hope for an opening to escape and speed away.
Your wings are damaged, flying is impossible for the moment,
But given time, they'll heal and freedom will be easy again.
You're still free…in a way.
Flying is just harder.

Then suddenly you're twenty-one and screaming along to the songs that made you sad, made you angry and made you happy.
Lyrics put your thoughts into words.

Those songs seem to unfold your past right before you, unraveling until the lonely and faithful highway is coated with memories.

You've found solace, not in another state, but in your mind.
Everything is different, but everything is good.

Take a breath, one last breath as the smell of sea salt drifts in the wind.
Go ahead, lean your head back, spread your arms, arms like makeshift wings, and feel as the wind flirts with your hair and hugs your body.
And smile, smile-true and full, as the sun reaches down and kisses your skin.
Capture this moment.
Inhale this, your sweet remedy.

This is freedom. This is healing. This is being whole.
There is no hate, no judgment. There is no sadness, no fear; nothing to bloom in your mind like a rose with thorns of poisons.
Nothing can ensnare you in your nightmares. Not here.
Ignorance is bliss.

Drive till the road gives way to the ocean waves, pushing and pulling, calling to your soul, begging you to release your demons of depression and screams of woe, begging you to allow your tears to mix with its salty embrace. The ocean waves beg you to release your pitied soul to its strong and willing hands.

Take me back to when I didn't give a ****, to when "he said, she said" didn't matter.
Take me home; take me back to my colorful sunsets and sunrises, to my sweet, sweet remedy.
Sing to me, laugh with me and show me that what we left doesn't exist, that it was all in our sick, ****** up minds.

My happiness, fueled by music, fueled by my desire, was lost in that concrete jungle; consumed by the lonesome green pastures and mazes of rivers.

Don't you want to know what the hot sand between your toes feels like? Don't you die to know what joy and a carefree life is like?
Let's go. Cut our ropes of doubts and fears and run. Just drive.

My happiness was destroyed back there, killed by my own mind, cut to pieces by that dreaded silver blade and blown to nothingness by the bullets that took a life.

So, will you take a risk with me?
Will you help me?
Will you heal alongside me?
Will you run with me?

So, won't you take me home?
Won't you take me to my sweet, intoxicating remedy?

I regret sleeping on that couch.
I was never very good at sleeping alone, and sleeping on that couch only made it worse.
Maybe that's why I clutch my pillow at night like my life depends on it.

A pounding headache is all I'm left with while my battered soul still remains there on that couch.
But it's time that I take it back.
It's time that I make a trade.
An eye for an eye, they always say.

So its time that I step out of my perfect fantasy and face reality, because I've become a ****** human being from searching for perfection and love.
We all know we can't obtain it.
I created my own hell, building blocks made out of self loathing, self pity, anger, the list goes on and on.
But every hell must freeze over.

That couch I slept on?
It's in my own mind, residing in the hell I created, smack in the middle of the thousands of hands that grab and choke and claw.
It's right in the middle of my inner demons.

I may still be sad in the morning, if I wake up...
But I'll sleep better knowing that I accepted the past.
Even if I still regret sleeping on that couch.

So,
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I know that my soul is mine to keep.
But if I should die before I wake,
I know that all of my struggles were not a mistake.

Vibrant colors fade to shades of dull gray.
Nothing seems the same, nothing is the same.
I’ve watched my life crumbled as I sit trapped in this cage, a cage I did create.
My life is and always will be filled with goodbyes, because people come and go no matter what they promise.
I've learned promises mean nothing.

I don’t mind change, in fact I welcome it;
But this change I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
When everything you’ve ever known and loved changes,
Something inside you dies.
A sad shell of my former self, I drag my feet more and more with every step I take.
They always tell you to stand tall no matter what,
But what do you do when you feel as if you have no spine?
Some days getting out of bed and back again is all I can do.
The cold is too much to handle on these days and my mind is too loud with pride and false hope,
But my heart is broken and bent with the truth.
But I guess I only have myself to blame.
I allowed myself to drown in a fantasy,
When I should have been drowning in reality.
I only have myself to blame for losing control when the truth hurt the worst of all.

Broken…Here I am on my knees, living with my broken heart. My mistake was believing that someone would be here with open arms to catch me as I fell. Instead I hit the floor shattering into a thousand pieces of nothingness. Where we’re you when I needed you most? I look back and I see that I changed who I was. I thought I needed to be something different, something that you would be proud of. I'm not going to lie to myself and say it is entirely your fault, because that wouldn't be true. I changed willingly over time. I thought I had to change who I was. I thought in doing so that it would bring you closer to me. I thought that maybe then you would take notice of how much I've grown up, how much I had to grow up. And maybe then you would put your arms around me, holding me in that warm embrace. The one that makes me feel safe. Didn't you ever ask yourself why I hugged you so much? Why the affection? Did you believe that I did it just for attention, or to be playful? Because I will tell you now that those weren't the reasons behind it.

I did it because I wanted you to hug me back. Because you we’re one of the very few that I ever felt safe with. You looked in all the wrong places for the answers to why I did it. You over thought it, looking for a deeper meaning that wasn't there. The answer was staring you in the face. You couldn't know how many times I wanted to run to you, to ask you to hold me. There were so many times I wanted to call you, as I sat there crying, overwhelmed and alone, needing someone there and to have someone wrapping their arms around me and telling me that I didn't have to go at it alone. When those times descended upon me, my thoughts turned to you. I would reach for my cell phone, opening my contacts and looking at your name, my thumb hesitating over the send button. But I never could do it. I couldn't find the courage to call you. I guess a part of me always knew that you wouldn't catch me. I could call you when I didn’t need you.

I know I should have had others I could go to. You tried to tell me about how others cared for me and that I should try to talk to them when I had problems. But how could you expect me to go to others when I have trust problems? How many times now have I told you that I have trust problems? I was never like you. I couldn't simply just talk to anyone about anything. I’m reserved and quiet. That I trusted you so much should have told you something right there. That you became important to me. That I could love you so much without being in love with you, should have told you everything you needed to know. Every time I fell I looked towards you for direction. In my heart I sat there with open arms, waiting for someone to embrace me. I didn't want to be alone anymore. I found the pain of being alone becoming unbearable. It was a force that was crushing my heart. Can you see now what you mean to me?

I hug myself, because there is no one else to do it. I grew up feeling alone, being the odd one out, the black horse in a herd of white. I started craving attention. I wanted others to see that I lived. I wanted people to take notice that I existed. I waited and waited to see if there would be someone who would look upon me. But then the people who did pay attention to me decided I was a tool for their amusement. I felt a sense of despair welling up inside of me. I looked at the world and saw no beauty. Instead I saw people who would hurt others for their own personal gains. The world stared back and I could only find myself saying “*******!” if this is how it was going to be I decided I didn't need anyone.

Seeing such actions from others led me down a road that I didn't wish to travel, a road that I found to be empty and neglected without care. Walking along this road, I found myself losing what I was about. I sacrificed what I thought was unnecessary. I did what I had to do in an attempt to cut off the pain that was flooding my heart. Instead I only made things worse didn’t I? I pushed away any hopes of living a life that came with love in it. But I wasn't asking for someone to be in love with me. I didn't ask for a lover. I did ask for someone to notice that I was hurting. I was slowly self-destructing without realizing it. This was a request that fell upon deaf ears. For so long I've looked for comfort. Maybe that is why I let myself open up to you the way I did. Maybe I thought that you would be someone I could turn to. That maybe you would be the one to mend the hole that was in my heart. I can see now that I placed too many wishes upon you. The fondest desires I had we’re too much.

I asked for so much from you didn’t I? Looking back at things, you did try with me. You worked so hard to cheer me up when I was crying, doing stupid little things, trying to force me to smile through the pain. You did what you believed was in my best interest. I still remember that one night, when I got hurt, the night that everything truly went wrong, when he put a bullet through his skull. When promises that should have never been made, now lay on the floor shattered into a million pieces. “I’ll never leave.” I remember how hurt I was. I couldn't even begin to understand why someone could do that. How someone could hurt their self like that without a second thought and to pretend that everything was okay, when it really was not. I was only fifteen. Fifteen and faced with the awful truth that not all was right. I remember how I sought you then. How I cried so much, my heart in such pain. I choked on my words, barely able to say anything. I had to force out the words one at a time, minutes going by before I could get out the next one. Do you remember that?

I remember the way you kept hugging me. Brushing my hair with your fingers, as you looked at me with such concern. I remember I cried on your shoulder slightly. I apologized for that. You smiled and made a joke about it. That was your way, always with a joke. Doing whatever it took to make me smile through the pain. But you tried so hard with that. More often than not I simply wished for you to put your arms around me, to brush my hair with your fingers and to tell me that it would be okay. I love you for the way you tried. But sometimes the best thing was an embrace and some small words of comfort. Those carry so much and so far. Those are what I wished for. The little things like that I have wished for all my life. I have spent my entire life time in search of that.

That is what I found in you, the one person who is here, and the one who gave me that gift. You asked why I always came to you when I got hurt. I couldn’t give you that answer. If you could see me now, I might be able to finally tell you why, to tell you the reason that I came to you. I came to you because I knew that you wouldn’t have turned away from me. I came to you because I felt safe in your presence. You made me feel like I was something more than trash by the side of the road. You looked at me and saw someone who could me more than what they were. You saw a person and not an object that was meant to be used by others. When I saw you, I saw someone who I wished to protect, someone who I came to love and respect. You came close to touching my heart.
I changed so much. You influenced a lot of those changes. Sometimes I thought to myself, I love you and I hate you at the same time. I loved you for everything you did. I hated you for the way you knew me so well. I couldn’t hide anything from you. I was an open book before your eyes. Now I lay here broken into so many pieces, believing that you were going to be there to break my fall. But I was wrong. You weren’t there. I fell and I don’t know who to blame. Is this the cost of believing in you? Or the result of my desires for comfort? As I look back at the past few years of knowing you. The constant thing I see is that you and I are similar yet different. You asked so many questions in an attempt to understand what I was about. But those **** answers were always before your eyes. I didn’t pretend to be deep. I wasn’t about something else than what I showed. I’m actually quite simple. You never figured that out. Now I’m afraid, its too late.

I hold my cell phone to my heart. One hand covering the other, in a vain attempt to hold on to the hope that you will call. I might be broken. But I wish to have hope. That we can reach out to one another before it is too late, before my dreams come true, and I find you missing with no signs of your return to my life…