Breathe out,
taking yourself out of the groggy room
Drawn back, six years old and
kicking high enough on the swing set,
high enough for tree tops.
Swinging became toes dangling from a high ledge
high ledges into things your parents told you not to touch, not to burn yourself on,

Let the taste burn,
Through fingertips
candle wax eloping down the wick, it's last flicker of redundant flame.
Time is runs short,
feel yourself creasing down the middle,
stained like an old table cloth, wilting away like sunflowers
curling at the corners
Dust swirls through the empty room, echoes in a ribcage, punctured lung.

Each song is a chapter
Every chapter is a memory
A night to remember
A dance to forget
A moment in eternity
A playlist, carefully scripted
Like a poem, each line definitive
Each line a story of its own
A waterfall of emotion
A time machine sending you back
From the future
To a happier place
A bittersweet romance
Or painful regret
The bass is a hammer to your heart
The intro, like ****** to your veins
The drums a master puppeteer
Pull you from the still
And force you to move like the rains depend on it.

One song turns you ten years old
Running carelessly through the cold

Another takes me to her driveway
As we said our last tearful goodbyes

This one reminds me of the great I’ve done
The pain and mistakes I’ve overcome

A chapter that strips me of my clothes
When we use to dance each night
And morning after

Start one up, and it smells like a sweaty dance floor
A rocking boat and a thousand lights
On the edge of young and responsibility
Young and fearless, free to be free

Another song reminds me to be strong in dark times
To remember where my heart is if I need to cry
To find solace in good times
Inspiration in bad times
To let the Sun rise in the dead of night

Each song saved my life
Each song broke my heart
Campfires to slow dances
Epic workouts and romances
The mixtape of my life is a collection
Of golden trading cards to me
A flick of the wrist and they come alive
And free me from the lonely nights
They all warm my heart
They all chill my bones
And if I can’t find my headphones,
I’ll sing them loud and out of tune
The courage they give
Is worth the embarrassment
So set me free, mixtape memories
If I had it my way,
Each song would play forever
And forever I’d be free