The return (here vs. then vs. now)

1. Here

The highway blurs past
          Out the window as moonlight
Silhouettes the newly budded leaves, shines on the white cord to my ear buds that
thrums with guitar strings
weaving in and out of a low voice.

It’s full tonight, and 
         I cannot help but wonder
   If it is welcoming me home
Or warning me
To turn and never come back;
Because I have been gone for a while,
Two weeks 

         or maybe just a blink, but filled with rushing rivers and mountains that touch the sky, cold and warm and so
                            much, 
and it is enough to feel more here than I have in months, maybe years,
              Enough to remember why I want to be Here on this world
     At all.

2. Then

It’s funny 
      How you do not notice something is not how it should be
until it’s gone.
Sometimes that thing is a sliver in your ring finger
     Sometimes it is a toxic friend 
you can’t quite get rid of.
Sometimes it is simply a situation- maybe,        
              maybe, it’s being woken up too early
And staying up too late
    to stress about these
tiny things
that someone says or does,
or gives or
lives by
the tiny things, yeah, the ones that are bigger than they ever should be because of the fog that clogs both the world 
and your thoughts.
Maybe it’s 
monotony,

repetition 

day 

after 

day

after 

day

until you get it 

exactly 

right.

(You don’t think you ever will, or 
                                                      ever could.)


3. Now

        They say it’s cowardice to run

And I do not think I am a coward- not now, anyway, but to me it seems
       that running is better than hiding,
that to be truly free from something you could never hope to confront 
is better than being stuck in that time loop of an eternal theater stage where not wearing a costume is as horrible as 
       wearing nothing at all, no matter how scratchy it feels on your skin or how much your breath clouds in your eyes under the mask.

But alas
My role in this act is not over yet;
And I fear that it will not be for four more years- at least.
So I suppose I will go back, I suppose
I will remember how to run away into my head again because
        I cannot do it literally, not anymore.
I suppose I will go back to my fellow actors, the        
ones who I love (if a bit tiredly) more than 
almost 
anything 
Suppose I will ignore this ache in my chest
that calls me away and tells me to never return like
       an animal running from its cage.
(maybe that comparison is unfair 
        but I cannot bring myself to be concerned.)

I will go back to living for now and retreat from living truly here, thoughts turning back to thens;

but just maybe I’ll harbor 
the hope that being free
will not always remain a blurry,
distant
memory.