Menthol

     These days it seems like anything less than a full pack of cigarettes isn't enough. I liken myself to this feeling too often. For years. Even in the years I felt full, sustained.

     I sat alone, or in the best company, on the pavement at two in the morning staring at the stars, remembering when things felt worse. How they should feel now, but they can't. It was a night like that one I listened to a now distance voice tell me, "She's just not you."  But as the summer months came, planes were caught, plans were made and I still stared at the stars alone, at two in the morning, killing my lungs and I thought of you. All of you. And hoped that you were doing alright.

     I said the other day to a good friend "I am too much initially or eventually." it occurs to me now as I try to find a glimpse of myself in other people’s words that I am perhaps always too much but never enough.

     I am notorious for breaking myself for you. For answering every call for help. For holding fast to hope I lost almost as quickly as I etched it into my skin. I am your rock. Your safe place. Your shoulder. Your conscience. Your savior. Your dictionary. Your rage. Your logic. I am all these things as honest and severe as you need. I am all of these things but I am never enough of whatever else you want. I am too much and hard to break.I fall apart on my own time. In parked cars or speeding on freeways. Or in your bed. Or that bench in your front yard. On the other end of phone lines.