One of these days
someone will be intriguing enough
to break these bricks,
turn off the electric fence,
cross the ocean,
and trek the desert
that surrounds the swollen bruise
in my chest,
but if it's time,
all I’d require
is a simple
knock on the door.

I should be tired,
but all I feel
is every piano strike
as it reverberates through my ears
and dances its way into my chest
so all I can sense is the stillness in the night.
If I wasn’t driving,
my eyes would be closed
in an effort to soak in every drop of peace
before the austerity of daylight
squeezes me dry.
Tonight I wasn’t good enough for anyone.

I can’t remember a time in my life
that I have spent this night alone,
but it seems only fitting that I start the next chapter
among the best friends I’ve come to know:
music, memories, and myself.
If only there wasn’t a war
between my desire for solitude
and ache to feel loved,
I could have enjoyed the evening’s involuntary isolation a bit more.

All I ask now
is that in this moment,
one of these notes could take me on a ride
to the nearest slice of complacency
beyond this bed of uncertainty
and fill me up with a sound of belonging
that will sing me to sleep
when my head greets the pillow,
then wipe away the invisible tears
that never fell from my soon-weary eyes.

Sweet
is the scent
of a blooming world
that has slowly
illuminated
to beautiful intensity
since the moment
you walked out of it.

Some days
I lose myself
so deeply in my thoughts
that I find the person
I was meant to be,
instead of the person
I wanted to be,
and in those moments
I realize
I don’t have to try anymore,
that I already am,
that everything I ever wanted
is everything that would have killed me,
and a new world
suddenly fell into my lap,
even though it had been there all along,
and in that world,
I am already my best,
I am enough,
I am free,
I am appreciated,
and every piece of life
I have ever lived
has brought me to this moment,
a moment where I can just be

and continue to be.

With each step
the keys swinging from my wrist
lightly graze my thigh,
urging it to continue moving forward
and resist looking back.
The aroma
of freshly bloomed honeysuckle
fills my nostrils
with the sweet nostalgia of past springs
alongside friends.
Meticulously-
picked songs bounce against my eardrums
as the soundtrack
to a life of simultaneous apathy, agony,
and ecstasy.
It seems
some higher being knew that
I needed to feel
the lonely tonight in a way I haven’t allowed
in quite some time,
that I just
needed to feel within myself
everything I’ve been
stowing away under my lungs,
adding pressure to each breath
that I never
noticed was there in the first place,
forcing away
the laze with which I’ve treated the existence
I’ve become.
In my peripheral
I see that colors are bursting
in the sky behind me,
and it’s enough for the wind to press my cheek
to look back
on a vision I’ve not witnessed
since autumn approached,
and I close my eyes to let my head fall back
because it’s almost
too much life to feel.

It occurs to me
there is beauty behind us
sometimes worth giving a glimpse,
and if we don’t turn around
at a time that calls,
we won’t find our way back home.