3-15-14 Hamilton, On

I'll struggle to remember the taste of your lips, the crimson candywine of breath across that grin. I'd forget all the crazy you brought me, if just for a minute you'd look at me like that again.
I'll hang my head for all of the hurt I gave you, and just pretend those silky locks still blew past my cheeks like they used to.
Did I let you down like we feel like I did? Was that your idea, or maybe mine?
Did I take your innocence from you? Or were you out for a safe place to stash it? Folded gently amidst my insecurity and confusion, was it safer there than where you thought you'd like to go?
The life living in my rear view is so crisp and warm, the view of the back seat flashes smiles like you used to. The passenger seat is empty though, and the mirror unsurprisingly cold to the touch.
What I'd give for you to look at me like you used to...
I've raced around the globe, somber highways and hidden byways pressing through mist  and mud. I've put miles between me and your ghost, and yet when I close my eyes you've caught up. Through crumbling ruins and slate blue skyscrapers your hellhound has dogged me, never am I far from the heat of its breath or the snarl of its curse.
At times I give in and let you overtake me, hedging my bets for a merciful death. Yet hobbled and rended you bid me press on.
If wishes were dreams, and life were like song, I'd meet you right back at that place we belong. But the best of intentions seldom ring true, so I'll stuff all those dreams, and stay thinking of you.

3-3-14 Ft. Wayne, In

Late afternoon walk through the tundra. Sidewalks a smothered memory of the fall, frosted over with icy layers of winter, it's a choose your own adventure of snow drifts. Just passing through, a sore thumb in shorts shuffling through the powder and brown slush. Thrift store, old music shop piled high with cables and relics of gear curled my lips to a smile. Sifting through preamps and dusty jewel cases, book stores and Asian grocery. The exotic odors carried my senses back to far off lands and other times.
The China buffet, long a hobby of mine seemed warm enough. Inside veneered in faux marble, granite, and a whole quarry of thinly simulated textures. Red, white, and blue lights scream a patriotism only an immigrant could really appreciate. Lost in thought, I pondered the crab on the steam table, the pink/grey tuna under industrious led lighting. People of commerce and science study marine life like the buffet diner studies the orderly rows of greasy bounty. Think they know the dwindling catch is ending up as a red tong fly-by in a Midwest feed trough? Is it wrong to have cheap fish? Should cheap sushi even be a thing? Nevermind that it doesn't even remind me of the real thing... Is it any worse than the overweight girls in the next booth beating out the pop tune playing in the restaurant?
The lights dangle down on long leads from the ceiling, overhead fixtures casting their shadows on the white walls like disembodied scrotum. Red booths, blue collar. I shrugged and dove back to the trough. Does it matter that those shrimp scuttled their way off the mortal coil to dive from freezer to wok and star in a salty, saucy steamtable revue? I shake it off and head back to the table. Empty lemonade and a strange crisp new napkin, scrawled on it a girl's name and number, and "nice tatts." The girls in the next booth conspicuous now more for absence than musical taste, replaced by a family of four. Feeling like a sore thumb again.