Seems like it always midnight...

So Friday afternoon, and I'm steadily edging ahead of the last of rush hour traffic. Passing some shirtless midget with a mullet in a primer-red pick-up.

I think to no one but the wiper blades: "What the fuck am I doing?" as I return to the right lane.

Just running away from an empty home and an even emptier life? Heading to the folks' for sympathy and home cooking. Sugarcoated memories.

Have I really forgotten what made me leave in the first place? Or Am I hoping to live it right this time?

It isn't really about them, is it? It's about me. It's about my mistakes, my life, and my memories that haunt me and taunt me like the rain against the windshield. I really wanted to wash my car today...

I see the exit approaching; 2 miles. Should I just keep going. It's a few hundred more miles from where I've always thought I should be. Has that been sugarcoated too?

Was it always this cold on this interstate? When I was 19 I used to sneak back this way at 3a.m. after doing things that would make my mother wonder what she'd done wrong.

Perhaps it was what she'd done right that made her never question where I was or what I'd done. I was taught, indirectly, to hold on to what you can in life, because very little is truly constant.

What is constant for me these days?

The emptiness I feel on nights like this when the rain is coming down and there's nothing to hold on to except a feather pillow and a memory.

The "what-ifs," the "I could-have’s," and the siren outside at any given hour.

Is it a sad song on the radio and the scratch in my throat while I sing every word as if I had written them?

Or is it the midget in the pick-up, which I always seem to be passing, but just can't seem to lose.

You don't have to say you love me...

So tell me, why am I doing this? I don't even seem to know.

There was a picture online that reminded me of him. Not "he" him, but some ideal state of him for me. You know, "him," that guy that I used to see when I was in my teens. Whenever I'd close my eyes, he'd be there and I would feel this warm glow radiating from my chest to my toes.

He was always just a shadowed figure passing in front of a spotlight. But I could fill in the image with my own collage of all that is right with man. Broad shoulders and a strong, masculine chest that I could bury my insecurities in. Brown or silver curly hair, I really couldn't tell. Eyes, green or hazel... maybe even blue. A hint of stubble around soft yet strong lips.

I would rebuild the image each time he'd come to me, but none were as perfect the real life that I'd not even seen yet.

I wish I could just make you turn around...

So tired of going through the motions. I keep trying to better myself; partly to get ahead; partly to make you see, but you're not watching. So maybe if I pour myself into work and school, I'll forget that I have to breathe every day without whomever you are. I feel like a failure in the one area of my life that is most important to me.

How long has it been since I took the cop-out and settled into this farce? How much longer can I keep it up? or will I just educate myself to some unreachable place and replace love with career success? or will I just always be mediocre?

I guess I will keep my eyes open. Every smile holds opportunity and every warm handshake hope.

Here You Come Again...

....just when I'd begun to get my life together.

When we were together, even just as friends at first, I felt so safe with you. I loved your outlook on life. You just wanted to try everything, do everything, go everywhere. I would have gone anywhere with you.

It's been years since you and I were together. After you broke it off to explore, I did so many things to try to get you back. I begged, I plotted, I attempted to make you jealous. In your typical manner, you just shrugged it off.

So, I went out and made something of myself. I got a better job, finished school, and tried to forget about you. In the back of my mind, I kept hoping that you would just come back and tell me that you couldn't make it without me.

Now you show up again, just to be friends, but I know that's not enough for me. It's all or nothing, baby.