I am not a truth seeker
Though I pretend to be
I would rather be comforted
By lies
Reality is far too obtrusive
And far fetched
For me
I am not a truth seeker
So look into my eyes
And tell me, one more time
You love me

It’s folded up like a high school note
But has more weight
Dredging up memories best forgotten
Bringing the ghosts that linger here, and
Oh, there are so many ghosts
That return in moments when emotion takes over-
When you have to remind yourself to breathe
Turning it over in your hands
Repeatedly
Turning it over in your hands
You let the paper do the talking
Retracing steps long washed from any pavement
Feeling the ghosts gather
******* the air out of the room
And- with a deep breath
You fold it up,
Banishing the ghosts back to their dark depths
Needing to save the only memories you have
Even if they are ghosts

When you were young, what did you think your life would be?
When I close my eyes, I can still see every detail
But I never saw people
I wrote myself off as
Unattached
Never really here, always trying to be there
You’d be surprised
How easy it is to turn off emotion
If you practice

Now I find the clichés about life to be true
Something about constant change
My grandmother singing
“People, people who need people”
Somewhere in the back of my head
Perhaps it’s a mature stance
To value people over things and ideas

Maybe I was just wrong
Or I’m losing my edge
It’s surprising how much it hurts to turn emotion on
To let myself care
But the things I never concerned myself with
Have a strange new importance
My softer, duller edges seem to be screaming something I used to be unable to hear
And for the first time
I understand

I never could find the words
To say what I was feeling
I thought though,
You could see them around me
Like the glow of radiation
You read about in comics

I expected people to listen
And find my words somewhere in the silence
But no one did
And my words floated around in the air
And disintegrated
Somewhere thousands of miles above the earth

I never could find the words
To say what I was feeling
I thought though,
If I wrote them down
Told the story
My story

People would understand
And find my meaning somewhere on the page
But no one did
The blank pages stared
Meaning never came
And they disintegrated
Somewhere thousands of miles below the earth

Where have I gone?
The person I was and swore I’d always be
Somehow, while discussing cheap beer soaked high school memories
I’ve lost myself
Lost my direction
Let others define who I am
Or at least who I should be
I was always so sure of myself
And uncompromising on the matter
How did I let this happen?
And you
I thought I knew you
But I can’t tell if you’re lost or found
If the person that I respected
Was ever really you
Or if I was fooled into thinking
You
Were something else I needed

Being young
Sitting in the passenger’s seat watching the rapid
Secretly racing
Always losing
Amazed by the speed
In which this train flew down the street
I still race the rapid
Only
I no longer lose
Bound to passengers and yellow lights I am not

I once saw someone hit by it
Feet lying in the street
Illuminated by blue and red flashing lights
Reflecting in the night’s sky
The story never made the papers

In my mind I keep seeing
Wreck after wreck
Train versus car
Bent metal
Screeching tires
Burnt rubber
Then silence
As bodies droop
Hunched over steering wheels
No superman to save them
No hope for ****** scenes

And I drive over these tracks
Holding my breath
Fearing the tires slipping
Or the gears failing
But I’m always safe
As I glide
Bump bump
Across
Never hit
Never crushed

My mind slips back
To the dead
Thinking that they never knew
What was coming
Never thought the tons of metal
Hurling toward them would
Hit

And as I drive away
Tracks fading in my rearview mirror
I wonder
If their thoughts
As they prepared for impact
Turned to superman