there's something in the quiet about this town,
the vacancy after the sun goes down,
the trucks backed in to their wide driveways,
headlights fading into distant rays.

the only movement outside is the gentle fall of the snow,
and the darkness seems to have an odd sort of glow,
no sounds of children, music, or the roaring of a crowd,
but the absence of noise has never been so loud.

there's something about the quiet in this town,
that reminds me of how peaceful it was to have you around,
during that first snowstorm of the new year,
whispering truths of our greatest hopes and fears.
the grey in this sky like the hue of your eyes,
as familiar as the nose kisses you gave me goodbye.

you'd hate this place: too cold, too far, too much of nothing to do.
but something in the quiet of this town that reminds me of you.

he can't breathe in summer without smelling my perfume
those mid-july kisses always destined for doom
december comes around all too fast,
faced with blurry memories from our past
spring gives birth to a life that don't feel new,
*** the grass ain't greener, just a different hue
time apart from you don't seem to fly by
but when the Sun reaches its highest point in the sky
it somehow always brings him back to me,
hot and sticky nights with my baby

You have never been worthy of the love I gave to you -
I will love myself til I don't miss yours anymore.

loving you wasn't an innocent kind of love,
it was guilty and achy in a way that felt so good i couldn't even talk about it.
and when we finally decided it was time,
i lost my best friend.
i felt you forget me every evening before we became strangers
and i still wake up in tears in the middle of the night because in a dream, i remembered what it felt like when you held me

eventually, you become numb to the pain that is no longer constant
the feeling of nostalgia becomes muted by the louder sounds of life:
like the ringing alarm clock reminding you that you’ve still got a job to show up to,
like the radio announcer's voice telling you that we're expecting clear skies.
there are moments throughout the day when you forget to think about them, forget to stare at old pictures, forget to cry in bathroom at work
there are milestones that will take place and they won't show up;
like your graduation, or your brother's wedding
and you almost don't notice their absence.
almost.

you think you won't be able to go on without them,
but you do.
you find there are new songs stuck in your head, even if you never forget the lyrics to your old favourite one.
you learn to let go in small parts -
you hear his name and your body doesn't flinch,
you walk past the liquor aisle without thinking to pick up his favourite brand of whiskey.

and one day, without even realizing,
you notice how straight you stand without the weight of their world pushing down on your shoulders.

they say if you love something, you should let it it go.
if it comes back to you, it was always yours
if it doesn't return, it was never yours to begin with
you've came and gone so many times that i've let you turn this home into a hotel room,
let you turn the bomb shelter of my arms into just another pair of limbs -
let you leave a vacancy between my fingers where yours once intertwined with mine like a promise.

these days i keep a lock on the door,
guard my heart with my arms crossed.
I keep my hands to myself.
they say if you love something, you should let it go
sometimes letting someone go is the same thing as pushing them away
sometimes letting someone go means holding onto yourself
sometimes letting go means not letting them return,
no matter how hard it is to lose something that once belonged to you.

there is a fire in my chest
that roars with every breath i take
i am suffocating,
choking on the fumes

at night, i am my own firefighter
i use the jaws of life to cut open my skin,
reach inside of myself
and extinguish whatever is burning me alive
until the flames re-ignite again in the morning.