i drove around the block twice on my way home from work 
and sang along to 
the good side 
with the windows rolled slightly down.
the 7th chords played on my heartstrings
and my rosy world turned to blue. 


i sat in my driveway with the car running for twenty minutes 
and cried when i saw the buckets 
my father had thrown across the lawn. 
he pretended to be asleep when i walked in
but i heard him get up and close the door to his bedroom 
and to the possibility of us talking tonight
i know we will fight in the morning.

the sunset looks different from the windows on the tall city bus
than it does from the windshield of my car.
when I drive, it's simply a rosy hue that covers the earth
and escapes behind the mountaintops in an instant.

I forgot how slowly the color saturates the grass,
and how the dusk rolls over the hillside
like waves over a sleepy shoreline,
covering the world in a blanket of pink.
I don't take my eyes off of it,
I can't,
but suddenly the blanket is a tent pitched over the earth and it's
soft and blue and gray,
like a still, silent night in a 50s Hallmark film--
devoid of all color, but not of warmth
or nostalgia, that familiarity that reminds me of you...

you're different to me when you're not physically here.
I can't recall how it feels to fold my fingers over yours
or to gently graze my lips back and forth over your cheek
while you speak
until you give in and kiss them.

you are a faraway face on a bright screen
and messages opened but never truly read.
the home you had made in my heart is vacant
and cold, freezing,
frozen in my memory and fading every day that I drive home
speeding blindly through a world full of color and change,
unable to remember what it's like to watch the sky slowly dissolve
into the earth

you are the song
i want to listen to
in that cliché and timeless
3am moment on the highway
windows rolled
down with the
potential-filled and empty
yet comforting indigo
sky blowing past,
only car on the road
just us, me with my
feet up on the dash,
fingers interlocked with
yours on my lap,
headlights illuminating
the road and trees
ahead, can’t think about
anything else except
for the pulse of the night
and cold air on my skin
and oh God
this is my life and
i feel so alive

someday
i want you
to be able to look at me
and tell me
that i shine like the moon

because the moon
does a lovely job
of reflecting the greatness
of it's giver of light

and i would like to do the same

i don’t want to sit around all day
impatiently waiting for him to call
and when i finally hear his voice
i don’t want to feel like he’s
the air in my lungs i need to breathe
and when it’s time to say goodbye
i don’t want to fight over
who should hang up first

i’m not looking for someone
to make me feel whole,
because i already am
i’m not looking for someone
to save me because
i’ve already been saved

i don’t want to be holding
hands at the wrist so if (when)
he lets go, i’m still holding on

i don’t want in-between
fake promises from prince charming

i want diner breakfasts
at 3 in the morning and
long car rides with broken radios
and handwritten letters with
nothing scribbled out because
he doesn’t care about perfection,
he cares about being real

when it’s time,
i want to be in love
not in love
with feeling loved