To whom it may concern, I would love to be at home, nothing would be better. Still, a promise is a promise. I said I'd be here, so here I am, with Chad at my side. He just didn't want me to go alone. With all due respect, I feel suffocated. I miss my bed, but I can't really stay in it can I? No, because if I do I know I'll only think of him, of my head on his chest and our fingers intertwined and I'll cry. Honestly, I'm tired of crying; it's all I really do now. It's how I know I'm alive: I feel my chest shake and I know I'm breathing... still breathing. Is it better to be alone and riding this wave of desperation, or should I be with the people who claim to care about me? I couldn't begin to give myself an answer. This role I'm playing, this girl who smiles but doesn't genuinely know why she does it at all. I'm a woman still so foolishly in love with you, that every time she passes a phone she wants to pick it up and replay your voice mails.
"On the road, babe. I'll see you soon."
I know it isn't true anymore, I know your not driving the streets of Franklin in the dead of night on your way to my house, I wouldn't be there to receive you anyhow. Perhaps these are occurrences that'll never take place again and I took the pictures in my mind and now they hurt, they burn the eyes at first glance. If you move on, well... I don't know if I'm ready to cross that bridge and there I go, crying again. Thing is, It'll come, it always does and I'll smile I guess, across the room at some party at you and whoever it is that's on your arm. Im not really ready. I'm never really ready. I miss your skin, warm and your smile, bright like the San Diego sun I thought we'd live under together. I'm only a few hours away; would I be a horrible person to steal the keys to the rental car and drive to you? Yeah, probably, You don't want to see me. I can understand that, I don't want to see me either. You wouldn't like what I've become... downing wine for lunch and losing weight like it's my job.
"Does going home and laying in bed watching you be beautiful count?"
And he whispers these sweet nothings in my ear and I guess my heart thuds and it echos through the hollow; despite how I so vividly still feel the pain of lying on your living room floor with the fresh blood on my lips and the ring around my neck from when he broke me. So Vivid. Just like the way I loved you and still do. But I loved him once too and maybe, maybe I should have never let him walk away. I've got to stop letting people just walk away from me. I'm worth having. I'm worth the love and adoration that I want to give to someone else, I'm worth that. I'm worth being needed and understood and trusted. Cherished and savored. I'm the fine wine I thought all the broken men I love to be... savor me the way I do the pain. He claims he still loves me. I can't fall again. I still adore the prints your feet made in the sand and snow.
"Hayley, you've gotta learn to trust yourself. Don't make all the stupid mistakes I did. Don't idolize every man willing to slide a ring on your pretty little finger, marry yourself first. You don't need a man to make things fair, 'cause darlin' more than likely, he won't be there."
Thanks Mama...