Lincoln Highway moved
more like a dance than a road
It drifted like the wind
corroded the earth
to guide me home.
The colors of the coming autumn
careened down, painting
the asphalt canvas below.

I had left Latrobe less than an hour ago
but crossed into a distant world
where the overgrown homes of old
remained among the ancient trees
breathing and watching me.

Weathered red paint running down
dilapidated barns like wax
melting from a candle's wick.
So star spangled Americana
it would not do it justice
to refer to it as just the sticks.

There was something profound happening;
the "American Dream" was dying here
and I was to bear witness
as the shinning city on the hill
fell into the metaphorical sea.

Spellbound in this catastrophe,
my ego still finds a way
to make it all about me.
I could not help but wonder
if Andy would remember
our talk about technology;
if Eamon and Bridgette would forget us three
walking hand in hand through the wood
and down the tracks,
battling back the inebriation
in the cold, hard black of a September night.
If these moments meant anything
to anyone but me.

My eyes locked on the horizon line
that rested atop a mountain peak.
I thought about how I left you,
left you three words short
of having me complete.
And I'd be lying if I didn't say
I contemplated running back to you
to speak what went unsaid
because home is not a place
but a thought in one's head.

You were home but I kept on driving
past the bones of a dying dream
letting my dreams die a little too
quietly inside of me.

Who decides life is not worth it?
You?
God?
When you reach this point, questioning living, breathing, you play god.
You feel your mind make,
take,
break
and create
new processes never felt before; a process of passion,
confusion, contradiction and confession.
You strive just by the thought of not surviving.
The
downfall
of a
suicidal
mind.

Painfully and buried deep down the impulses slip out.
Screams for hopes, answers, connections, positive aspirations.
Constantly wondering is this it?
Is this the end?
That your life can never peek again,
so the result of your collapse is an
eternal slumber with the devil by your side.
Whispering in your ear telling you about the ache
and sorrow your sinking heart and conscience feel.
An eternal hell. An eternal anguish, torment, suffering.
Do you stay in the hell on earth or hell in the after life?
You examine all the details
over and over
only thinking of your lonely pitiful life.
Meaningless and outrageous.
Screams moving around trying to get out but only
bouncing back inside of you to find
the little nothingness in which they are in seek of.  
Literally, are taking you in and cutting you into
the smallest treads as possible over and over.
Never letting up to give the one underneath a second break.
Pounding as hard as possible.
Thudding and pulling, twisting and hurting.
Neither end nor good.
You can feel the over whelming sense of your corruption
taking you headfirst and choking your every last breath off.
Cutting it away like a river being eroded by things we cannot control.
Your life you cannot control.
People you cannot control.
You see the only outlet in your mind
but it burdens you with insanity behind it.
Taking life; your own life.
The reasons are bliss.
Sweet tender resolutions freeze
over your tempered thoughts,
fragile thoughts of a
suicidal.
Unaware of the footprint left behind.
Your stomach churns,
stirs
and confusion
sets in once again.
You feel ***** rising in your
throat about to implode
but it’s just an illusion created
in your mind;
hallucinations.
Questions are still increasing
their intensity and passion.
With every moment of aloneness and isolation,
the time ticks away from you until you feel as though
you will fly into a rage.
You take a deep breath;
intense thoughts.
Questioning right verses wrong;
life verses death;
now or never.
Take a step back
and pull the trigger;
welcome to the end.

The pain of a broken heart is real
It's a physical pain, like an open wound
Raw, stinging, burning, aching flesh
It even has a smell all of its own

Yes, I can smell it, it burns my senses
It assaults my ego as it comes in waves
It invades my dreams by night
It selfishly monopolizes my days

My every thought is consumed
By the bitterness of my heart so bruised
By the man who in one moment loved me
And in the next made me feel so used

But now I've found a way to dull the pain
A way to numb myself
A way to stop the flow of tears
A way to make it through the days

You should be happy for me
Why aren’t you happy for me?
You should be happy… For me.
But I'm not even happy for me.

The deeply personal thoughts and emotions which I've poetically expressed to you
did not come from some shallow and easily accessible metaphorical tide-pool
where through the clear water you see the empty shells which once were alive

No, those intimate and soulful words were painstakingly and lovingly lifted
from the Deepest depths of the most turbulent and uncharted seas;
where only the bravest of lovers have been known to survive.

So read those words again my love,
They are quite literally from the core of my soul.
Why do you deny what's meant to be my love,
You reject the truth that you and I both know.