The suitcase is a mess with clothes strewn haphazardly panties on the floor, a sock on the nightstand. Seems like life makes a bitter mimicry of things gone wrong; mistakes I can't undo - a past I'm afraid to face, a future I'm unable to reach; submerged by the present. Stranded in a torturous state of limbo - with lost eyes and worn feet a mind half-bent in delusions, and split between self-destruction and a desperate denial. The electricity flickers, lights dim and fluctuate; moonlight streams in steadily, through paper-thin curtains, threads hanging loose as the wind blows a chilled air and the sweet sounds of domestic disputes and car alarms; the neon lights filter in, a fine accompaniment to this loneliness; the rhythmic hum carries on the notes of the songbirds of yesterday-- times spent down by the backyard ponds and dusty country roads with fresh lemonade and a farmer's daughter fixing dinner while her Momma rests in the shade, swinging on the wooden swing Daddy made for their twentieth annivesary. Travelling with nothing to my name, a pen in hand and a fake identity already spoken for as I attempt to outrun the sinful longings for those summery nights in winter and the lull of some aging melody. The greater the need to leave and ignore the roots of home, the sooner the urge to return comes crawling on its hands and knees, with its fingertips interlocking around your neck - poised and ready for that petty rebellion you'll throw in its face; it anticipates those slick moves, counters and returns with unchained ferocity. And still, you'll resist; wind up shacked up in the back of a drunk man's pick-up truck - thankful for a ride to the nearest, cheapest motel with rattling faucets and stained carpets; further those dreams you dismissed for some forgotten need for independence that becomes compromised regardless of that profound personal sense of liberty that thrums deep inside your heart; it's meaningless among these faded family portraits. Like ghosts, hauntingly familiar and strangely foreign; that guide us away from serenity and open doors we've yearned to close. With a foot outside the room, the scene speaks and screams; kicks up a storm as the dust settles back into anonymity.