To: A. Shires

I know how you’re feeling 

to be up and left alone

Writing a hundred songs

waiting beside the phone

Wondering what you did wrong

Taking pictures off the wall

that were hanging like gallows

Doing what you can 

seeing what you can swallow

Dreaming that you’ve got wings

waking up from a deep sleep

and writing down every word

hoping your thoughts land

on the page and don’t sound too absurd 

I’m doing things I don’t understand 

I threw my heart up at the ceiling

hoping it would stick

I want to not feel all the feelings

I want to not wake up sick

It’s hard to see your love written out

over a hundred pages, a thousand verses

a million words

Did you write everything down as it happened? 

Do you remember it as it was?

Or do you let your mind wander and

rewrite all the things he’s done?

My mama tells me to hate her

Did yours say that too?

My heart finally stopped breaking

and all the pain moved to my head

Now I’m scared to sleep

Though it would be easier,

I don’t want to wake up dead 

How did you do it

How has it been a year?

Since he left you running to some

far off distant dream 

We can’t help but question what’s in front of us

Now nothing is as it seems

Now I’m scared to love

anything that’s close to me

because it seems real easy

to just up and leave

I’m tied on a railway track

rope cutting into my skin

Is this how it all begins?

When you need a train

it never comes

now burned into my back

I know I know better

I know it’s no use to wait

but what else is there to do?

Tell me how you made it

How you’re able to face sunlight

How do you face all the questions 

without answers?

How do you let him live his own life

when he was once written all over yours?

Do I have to write everything over?

Or do I just let those love songs stay?

Did you just change the key? The tempo?

Did you add another verse?

I’ll stop asking questions.

I’ll just learn to wait.