Spent the last few days looking over my shoulder, staring at the past. Moments lost in indecision rekindled over a small conversation. The excess baggage I chose for this trip scuffs as it rolls down the street, dragged behind me. A load too heavy to shoulder alone.
Four walls make a house, but the empty halls echo like a tomb. On the fridge, a magnet reading: “Depression is my copilot.” Scrawled beneath it with childhood magnetic letters: “My other plane is anxiety.”
Chain mail letters promising futures etched in ink. Looks better on paper. Folded airplanes dashing through the air, crashing and burning on impact. I smoked love letters over coffee. Never promised you a rose garden while promising you the world.
White picket fences in a sandstorm. Tattered denim jeans. Clothes hung out to dry. Garments for the world to see. I spray painted a broken promise, signed it with our initials wrapped in a heart.
Move too quick and leave it behind. I trudge forward. Oil-slicked road covered in tar. I walked a mile for you; wasn’t that enough? The caged animal remembers its freedom. It’d give it up if it could.
Chapin City Blues 