I burned my history on tape
I've watched it so much the picture's begun to fade
Every time I hit rewind,
I tell myself it's the last time
When will I move on with my life?

i am the frostbite
spreading through the frozen fingers of your new lover's
hands, transferred body heat
burning the skin.
i am 3 am drinks in the
pouring rain, swerving onto
oncoming traffic.
i am the ship lost at sea of our love.
i am a broken bathroom mirror.
i am an unidentified purple bruise
on the neck of your ex-lover.
i am the fork in the toaster.
i am an untuned guitar in
a filthy venue.
calloused hands against soft skin.
slam the whiskey shot down on your neck. wash the blood off in the kitchen sink.
broken blinds forcing unwanted sunlight into your nightmares.
i am the definition of breakup ***, i am the
aftermath of self-hatred and one more go around.
**** just for the fun of it, just to ****.
pretend you are making love. pretend this matters.
i am late night emergency room
visits for rope-burned necks.
i am the car alarm blocking out your
one night stand's profound moans.
organize your bookshelf to spell out my name in the titles.
every song on the radio
will sound like goodbye.
i am the perfect time for a first kiss. swollen lips. swollen throats. inevitably calling your name on my deathbed.
i am under-the-bed-shoeboxes filled
with ripped photos that
still smell of his cologne.
i am one more dose of ambien
to get you through the night.
overdose on love, starve your lover.

stop.

rewind.

i am the first glance in a coffee shop.

play.

We’re close enough to home
To castles made of cards
Built in our backyards
Crowns of coloured paper
Our world could last forever
A kingdom in which we ruled
A group of friends we fooled
And when the rain lashed down
The cards fell to the ground
We rushed inside for tea
You’d cuddle on the couch with me
We’d dream of a sunny tomorrow
In a land where there’s no sorrow
Our futures we planned out
There seemed to be no doubt
That anything would ever change
We had everything arranged

But when the time finally came
We realised life is not a game
Not a fairy tale storybook
With hardships we could overlook
No more magic or castle cards
Everything seemed to be so hard
Is this what we had dreamed?
Much more hellish than it all seemed

But here we are right now
On the outskirts of our town
To the world of our backyards
To the kingdom of castle cards
And we’ll never reach that place
But I can almost see it from where I stand
Of fairies and giggling gnomes
Yes, we’re close enough to home

The things I never said are suffocating me.

The realization that you had gone
Hit me harder than ever before
Pulling the air from my lungs
As if I had just taken a vicious blow
Every muscle in my body froze
Nothing had the desire to move
For fear that I'd slip even farther
Tumbling down this dark path
I pressed pause, looking for rewind
But life doesn't operate that way
A desperate cry for help escaped
As violent rivets cycling through
This broken and unwilling soul
Searching endlessly for someone, anyone
It was then that I sadly realized
No one was ever truly there

There is something tugging at me,
through the years.
A question clawing away,
in the recesses of my mind.

I feel like outdated technology.
I feel is as if I cannot keep up with
the rapidly changing times.
I can rewind.
I desperately want to rewind.
But everyone will leave me behind.

But it is as if I do not belong,
in this time. This place.
I can't bring myself to conform.
I can't be compatible.
**And I do not know what to do about it.