Too Much

Sometimes, the escape route has a traffic jam. There's too much walking away done by everyone else, finding the emergency exit doors when they need them the most. I'm still standing, but in the same spot I was a year ago. So I might as well be sitting, or sleeping, except I cannot. Change is mostly apparent at the reunion. Like when that Aunt you rarely saw commented on how tall you had become. It's like the "you have lost weight" observation by someone you rarely see. This leads me to think that some breathing space from myself is in order. Yet the only way to leave oneself is to become immersed in the life of another. This is too much like commitment. This is too much like something other than self reliance. This is too much letting go. Sometimes the escape route has a traffic jam; other times I freeze, still, in a burning building.

Impasse

I think about you most when I'm trying
the hardest not to. You might as well
be that one song stuck on repeat that
plays in my car while I take
drives up Cooper Mountain, just to watch
the sun set like it does every night.


The sun sets every night while I'm trying
hard not to think about you but this turns
out to be a difficult thing to do. So I turn
pages of Picoult novels, sitting at the top 
of Cooper Mountain, pretending to be
in another world but even then,
the supporting characters
sustain this impasse. 


You are a roadblock to my normal escape
route. I welcomed you into my life,
and occasionally my mind,
but certainly not my heart. 


We all like beginnings, but I fear the part
where things end, dead ends; 
most likely with smoke and fire and the ringing
of car alarms from a crash when a corner was 
cut too close. You'll be alright, because you spend 
your nights sleeping, while I'm driving up 
Cooper Mountain
thinking, thinking, thinking.