And somehow I have
slipped into a state where
my dreams were realities and
my realities will be my dreams...

I left, and nothing was the same;
I came back, and everything was the same.

I've changed, but you haven't;
this thing between us hasn't changed,
or has it?

You remain transfixed on the games,
and even after months of silence,
you expect me to play;
and I get a thrill off of saying no,
which admittedly is my own way of playing back.

I don't know whether I love you or hate you more,
but homecoming also means coming home to that dichotomy,
to resisting urges and old patterns,
to hoping you've finally figured out where I'm at,
that your path has met mine,
that you've changed with time.

These roads feel the same but also
like they belong to a life I no longer know;
new tracks on new albums make the soundtrack for the drive,
and you attempt to wedge yourself amongst lyrics of redemption
and desire.

I need you to let me go
but want you to come with me;
I need to live the new life I've built
but am haunted by past fantasies;

when I come home,
it can't be to you,
and when I leave,
I'm leaving you too.

I remind myself of
all the bad things you did
so that I can convince myself
to stop missing you;





Yet I go on missing you anyway...

When glass shatters,
all you can do is
pick up the pieces.

When we shatter,
all we can do is
pick up the pieces.

Things remain broken
only if we choose not to
fix them.

I'm freezing cold as my
insides burn,
my body lapped up by
flames of frustration and feelings of failure;

lonely in the most crowded of rooms,
fighting to find meaning in a city full of answer keys,
the most educated of the inexperienced and the
least successful of the most ambitious;

adventuring in ambiguity,
road tripping with no map,
the drive is long, the horizon lost in the sea of darkness;

sleeping passes time,
but the past's vivid dreams seem harder to find;

where am I (fromnowgoingheadedstranded)?

I am exhausted of
feeling exhausted.
I am emotionlessly emotional.
I am hopelessly hopeful.
I am sitting still at 1000mph.

Sometimes I play a game
when I walk down the sidewalk or
I cross the street or
I descend the stairs or
I exit the elevator or
I squeeze onto the crowded train or
I choose a seat on the bus;
I refuse to alter my route,
to change my footing,
to look down or away;
I am unabashed and fearless;
and not one time,
not one single time in the hundreds of times
I have played,
have I ever lost;
my path is always clear,
my victory always uncontested,
because I make it so.