i'm tripping over these old ghosts
trying to run from past licking my heels,
but i just can't seem to get away from
the bloodshot eyes in the mirror.

i've been playing these old records again,
looking for the voice i once had;
but i'm running out of words
and i don't know if i can find them again;
i'm not sure i want to.

the monsters under my bed
have all come out to play,
but i'm afraid of the emptiness
that comes with the silence
much more than i am of the dark;
i've made a home in the abyss of oblivion,
and i think the eternal chasm
just may be the shelter
i've been craving:

shelter from the perpetual vacancy that has
lived in my chest since you decided
i wasn't good enough,
shelter from the painful echo
of the right choices i never made,
shelter from the memories of the innocent eyes
that used to look back at me in my reflection
once upon a time ago.

that girl is nothing more than
a whisper in the dark now,
the outline of a shadow i lost long ago,
and not the kind i can ever sew back on.

sometimes lost things stay lost,
and even when the memory is long since forgotten,
pieces of us search forever,
search everywhere and search nowhere,
and we never do find what we're looking for.

i never did find you again,
nobody else tastes like the heaven in your breath,
nobody else takes me to paradise,
nobody else had my future in their eyes.

these nirvana cds are all played out
but i still search for you in every song

my papers are all blank
my guitars are all untuned
and these sylvia plath poems don't hurt
the way they used to.

i think i'm in love with the idea of you,
or with the beautiful way you
broke my heart,
or maybe i need someone to blame
for the mountain of bad decisions
that all began with you

i keep having the same dream every night:
you kiss all the monsters away,
but they're still lurking in my head
when my alarm buzzes,
and i know you'd never
dream about me too.

i once heard a fairy tale
where you gave me a home
every time you smiled;

i don't know how much longer i can
live there alone,

i don't know how much longer i can
hold onto you,

i don't know how much longer i can
hold on at all.

i surrender.


*m.k.