I remember the night you sang Objects in the Mirror to me on the phone. 



I never thought that it would feel this way.

You never taught me how to heal the pain.

I wish you caught me on a different day, when it was easier to be happy.

I kinda find it strange, how the times have changed.

*

I remember how we used to talk about love, like it was an institutionalized little child, drug down from what glory it used to hold; how it used to transcend time and knowledge and beauty and all other emotion.



Someone like you is so hard to find.

I remember that you thought I was put together perfectly. I still don’t understand how you ever reached that end of the spectrum, completely opposite my own view. I still don’t understand how everyone around me sees someone that I don’t see when I look in the mirror. I’m anti-altruistic and unintelligent and completely guilt ridden and not at all beautiful.


All I ask is don’t you worry, I won’t hurt you, don’t you worry.



I remembered how much stock I put in you. I remember how you promised you wouldn’t hurt me, because you had been put through the same wringer as I. I remember how you just unattached yourself one day, on the bias that it was my fault. You stranded me. Probably for another, prettier, girl. 



Listen to me I will set you free,

He ain’t gonna break your heart again.



And I could never figured out what that particular line meant in the scheme of things, but I realize now, as you’re trying to drift back into my life with the drive of a listless breeze, you were setting me up for the next heartbreak. 
After all, all my life really is, is a string of heartbreak.



Go through the worst to reach the ecstasy.

Wish we could go and be free, once baby you and me,

We could change the world forever, and never come back again.


 
I remember the feeling that bloomed in my heart when I realized someone like you cared about someone like me. That someone like you wanted to fix someone like me. Then I reached the conclusion that depression and mental illness isn’t attractive. That you were drawn to the prettier parts of me that resembled tarnished silver, in the hopes that you would have time to break in your silver polish in the spare time and privacy of your awful little home town.



You don’t havta cry. 

And mend a broken hearted girl if you can, I don’t expect you to be capable. 

You have the world right in your hands, your responsibility is unescapable.



I realized that boys don’t like sad girls, but you could see what I could be. I thought you wanted to help me and fix me, but eventually shouldering a burden that isn’t your own gets too heavy to carry. It gets heavier and heavier through the crying, sleepless nights that you would guide me through with your lantern, which became duller each time I needed saving.



Don’t even say you’re about to end it all,

Your life is precious ain’t no need to go and **** yourself. 


Then you left.

On my watch.

On my fault.

On something that wasn’t really my fault.



I promise that I’ll be a different man,

Give me the chance to go and live again.



But here you are with nonchalance and no apologies for the tears wasted on you. 

There may be another boy toying with my broken pieces, fitting me together because he can see the beauty you saw. 

But here you are pretending you still care and still find me beautiful.

There may be beauty in this other boy who helps me, who is just as broken as me, another boy who shares my pain in what I’ve never gotten.

But here you are rehashing memories of nights spent crying over a song.



You don’t have to cry.

Let’s leave it all in the rearview.



But here I am, telling you that broken girls give second chances.



Let’s leave it all in the rearview.

But here I am, telling you that I’m halfway mended.



Let’s leave it all in the rearview.



But here I am, telling you that for me, once you’ve left you cannot re-enter.



Leave it all in the rearview.


Rosary on the rearview mirror
Guide me as I travel here and there
If I should lose control
Take the wheel; save my soul

Rosary on the rearview mirror
Crucifix I hold in my hand
Lord bless me
As I travel the land

Rosary on the rearview mirror
I believe that you will get me there
My daily travels
My vacation trips
Our Father and Hail Mary's
still comes from my lips

Meeting his dark eyes
in the rearview mirror
was the highlight of my days.

A fine but shy specimen;
he would avert his gaze
before I could catch them.

The way his hair would
fall on his forehead,
left me enraptured.

I much preferred to look at
the rearview mirror the entire drive
rather than the view outside.

We are nothing that matters,
created in mystery
while slowly dissolving to dust.
Pretentions and delusions our comfort as reality bites with it's point filed teeth.

We are not made of stars, nor moondust, we are products of all that has gone before and the destruction of all that is yet to be. 

I yearn to see this life through a rearview mirror, it's withered form a speck on the far horizon, for the hurt to stop as this knife in my back plunges further into my sickened depths, severing my spine from all it holds dear. 

I yearn for silence, for these thoughts to stop spewing from my acid tongue, burning my unkissed lips with a million wasted words while attempting to say only one.

Minutes turn into months, decades of meaningless days and miniscule triumphs. 

The stage is set, my role is uncast but the curtain never falls, I stumble wildly through blind utterances, dreaming darkly, while anxiously awaiting the applause that will herald my passing.

This is not living.

When I was small
   and I knew it all

When life was fast
   and nowhere to go

I just see myself looking back
   through the rear view mirror

And : When "Then" turned into "Now"
And : I'm not so sure about anything now
And : I want life to slow down
And : Last , taking forever to get here

   It was fear looking back
   In the rear view mirror

i
you say i am honestly not the same person
i say one day i woke up honest
and i do not know how to undo experience
my own eyes and ears and nose and mouth
cannot be undone at the moment
how do you do it?
push that pressure to the back of your mind
like that
how do you all manage to laugh with a straight face
at things that you know aren't really funny
i can't fathom it. where you go
when you are stomping and ripping
and ****** and jeering
and laughing and running
it's exhausting to watch you

ii
i apologize if it doesn't make sense
that i can't play along
but playing along
doesn't make sense
i could never win a grammy
with this tight lipped smile
laughing at the expense of others
makes me feel more like a paparazzi
placating insecurities for currency
leeching off the vulnerability
you may not think i'm smart but
i am smart enough to know this is not 'normal'
and there is nothing wrong with staring at you in the rearview
and saying "i wish that was really sarcasm"
i'll tell you the truth
and you don't have to like it
and you don't have to like me
and i don't have to like you
because if there's one thing i know about myself
it's that i don't dislike anybody
until they show off their callousness
hoping it's the right party trick
to gain respect

iii
we watch comedy tv, and you are worried
by the way my spine cracks
when i let out a uncontrollable laugh
dragging on, beginning to spill, and as i try to quell it
my whole body shakes with the pressure
of it bubbling inside of me
you feel all of this beside of me
a small volcano with a bent back
quaking absorbed by pillows and flowers and cushions
not quite right for you
wondering why i couldn't laugh like this earlier
when we were not alone
everyone is looking for something more porous
more willing to let in effortlessly
and absorb tirelessly
that can simply laugh like a stream bubbles
and let go of the undercurrent
yet we are sharp and uneven and course like logs
and the weight of our actions carries much further
being shunted downstream by tides of gravity
every intention runs it's course
every intention speaks volumes
if you feel that in your core
every day you will uncontrollably think of how
every intention defines the quality of the laughter
stuck in someone else's head
and you will save it for things that are funny