I feel

In this car home I drink in every brick home like the whiskey sour of two hours ago. Three in the morning is still cool enough to exist and too tired to think clearly.

Tired enough to sit at the desk and think about your position in it all. Tired enough to be away from home and feel more like yourself than ever before. Tired enough to be away from home and feel guilty for not being trapped under the ground. Under the ground dying slowly immobile waiting for heaven knowing you're never allowed to wish for it. Knowing every step you take is a knife in the sole of the steps taken before your name existed.

Driving down that road-- up and down, up and down, up and down for a reason different than before, worth more and less than before. Feeling the openness of the lake next to you and the earth beneath you but never able to reconcile the two. Earth and water mixing together into an ugly mud, splattered across the mirror that leaks out onto the pathways and slips beneath everyone's shoes. They wipe them off at the doorway like most garbage is and washed away by soap and friction. Lost in the fibers of the carpet. You just don't matter that much and you shouldn't.

Driving down that road, every light, every edifice pointing towards the future you believe to be true. That one day you can be alone. That one day you can be alone and let the weights drop to the ground. That one day you can be alone and let the weights drop to the ground and believe the ground loves you for leaving it behind. Each two-flat, each stone-drenched structure smiling down on you like you belong inside them. Like you're a part, not apart, but a part of the thing you believe yourself to a part of. The day the guilt subsides. Each transgression is not a regression, but a progression towards the independence you've felt forever but never truly held. You'll fix the cracks jostling you around in the car on your way home. Just one more year and you're gone. Just four more years and you're gone. Just an indeterminate time and you're done, but it's never enough.

You crave like cocaine the brick and glass and lake. The laughter and love without a worry who hears above. Or below, where disapproving glances glance at the lake, noting the off-color and colorful waves.