27 miles to empty
i needed to leave the house
i needed to get out of bed
to escape from loneliness
and, for a moment, leave behind
every single thing i never said

out of the quiet emptiness
of my cold grey walls
out of my head which,
coincidentally, only finds
stillness in distraction

i needed to give myself
something else to think about
to be preoccupied from
my own preoccupations

because it's never empty
up there, but sometimes
when i sing along
it starts to feel like
it's just me and the music

but my phone is dead
it always is
it's surprisingly hard work
avoiding all the conversations
you don't want to have
(which is most of them)

FM radio, i forgot where to look
i scan the stations
three times over
and only stop when i feel like
i'm emma woodhouse
88.1, symphony no. 3

and in the dark
i don't even have to
close my eyes
to pretend i'm someone else
somewhere else,
sometime else

and then the host rolls
advertisements, deals and steals
and did you know the cemeteries
are ready to serve you again?
i laugh to myself and wonder
what's it like to serve the dead?

to dig six feet down
and resist falling in
it's much more sad
up on top, anyway, you know

but i'm distracted again
and god, it feels good
i'd rather think about death
than how much it hurts
just to exist sometimes

in the classical music
i lose myself in the past
i'd romanticize a war if it meant
i'd get to wear a pretty dress
and never have to think of
someone falling out of love with me
ever again

even if it's because they're bleeding out
on a muddy battlefield
in the middle of a match
that wasn't even theirs to fight

somehow death seems a more
proper thought than imagining
you going on and living
without me

7 miles to empty
and i'm back to where it all began
i just can't shut out the voices
telling me all roads don't lead to you