There’s a family gathered in their “family room”. The tv is on but someone muted it. Mom’s in the kitchen looking over the island at the rest of us. Dad is in his chair. Brother on the couch adjacent to me. Words flying and screaming like rockets thrown to the sky. Their bombs blanket the carpet around. I sit somewhere in the middle. My phone in my pocket. I reach for the one thing that I know can save me. An ear bud goes in each ear and soon the music on and up. 

I know I can’t leave the room with out bruises; at least not right now. Blink-182 is flowing through my veins. I know it’s going to be alright now. As the chords ring out I fade out. I’m not the target, well, not this time. I fade into the deep green couch with a white chord leaving my ears to my hand where I hold what’s left of me.

Things like this have been happening lately. I’ve been having that nightmare again. The one where I wake up and it’s not how it was supposed to be. Part of it feels like a dream but the other half is more like poison to me. It eats through me to wake up every day like that. 

Fort Minor is on now; the music still ebbing throughout me. It’s hard to hide where I’ve been from myself. It’s hard to deny and lie to myself that this is ok, that this feels right, cause it isn’t all there. You’re looking at a rose without it’s petals feeling proud that you could just get the thing to come out of the ground. You aren’t out of the woods yet. It’s like a forrest fire and if I get out then I guess I’m all that’s left…

I’ve been debating on going back. Debating with myself. Throwing it back and forth. It seems to be the only game of catch I’m good at. To go back to the desert where it all began. To come home to a home that’s not your home anymore. Maybe not moving in, but just to visit the walls that saw the magic before the meltdown. It might be nice to drive the roads we once owned. I know she’s not there anymore. I’m not looking for her. The boy is looking for him. Because now, there’s a man, and he’s wondering where it all went. If it can’t be bought and it can’t be made how is it so easy for it to all go away? I’ve seen a lot since then and it hurts to say I still haven’t found my way because at the end of the day I still come home to four thousand square feet of nothing and nobody…

Tough. It hurts. It rips past my skin and fights me where I should be able to win but it’s still an on going battle and these battles just make up this war. It’s that war where both sides don’t want it going on anymore but the blood keeps spilling and somehow both sides are loosing ground. His side is loosing everything that’s around. 

I’ll fight on. Life is worth Living. I’ll find a way to win. Hope is here.