unpack and assuage my fears

one by one

my pack is heavy

and i'm complicated

but please

keep on trying.

here, i'll do the work for you,

undo the zippers and

unlock the locks

but please

finish the rest.

i can't do it myself,

otherwise i would

make sense of my mess.

but if i were to try,

i'd get sucked in all over again

one at a time

clean out this full and heavy heart

my life is a mix tape

put together so carefully

listened to so intently

and eventually forgotten by the wayside.

tapes were replaced by cd's

but i'll still be here

when you want to listen

and reconnect to your past.

there's a hidden track if you're willing

and you can play me again if you want.

remember to rewind when you're done

i want the next listener to start at the beginning.

i haven't been looking for you

not recently

it wasn't in the hopes that you'd show up

when i wasn't looking,

though, that would be nice.

no, it's mainly because...

i've already spent so much time

looking, analyzing, agonizing.

and sometimes a girl just needs to stop

stop looking

maybe even stop caring

until one day

someone comes out from the shadows

and takes the shape

of the empty spot beside me

i didn't know was there

i know now that we'll never be together again

and that all of his promises will go unfulfilled

i'm not surprised though

which is pretty sad

show up in the middle

and open heart surgery

looks like murder.

start from the beginning

and you and i

look like a fairy tale.

everything's old-fashioned,

nothing technologic,

that's supposed to imply

meant-to-last

because that's how things worked

when old-fashioned

was typical.

from the beginning

what we had looked like

a storybook tale

but start from the middle

and it's open heart surgery.

fast forward to the end

and someone's left on the table

not sewn up

all grown up

another casualty

in the old-fashioned

war of the open hearts,

a tale as old as time.

everybody lies

there's the truth

i do it to others

but my best

i keep for myself

delusions

and romance

don't go well together

kind of like you

and i

there's the truth

but that's not what

i dream about

not what keeps me

smiling into the morning

every body lies

and mine is

a repeat offender

i want to let you under my skin

but i'm scared because you might want to stay

i don't know if i'll be good for the long term

i'm best when i push people away

sometimes i think i'll be alone forever

and sometimes i think i'm only good for short flings

sometimes i think i can live with that

but most days i know i need more things

i don't know if i can get everything i need from you

and maybe that's why i'm scared

unsure of whether to give my all

to someone who might decide not to care

years ago i might not have been so rational

and thought this completely through

i wouldn't have cared how we ended

as long as i had a beginning with you

but there have been times, and men, who wronged me

and because of that i've become careful

i started to keep my dreams of love to myself

to keep from becoming sentimental

so i don't tell you i love you

though i might act otherwise

i won't unravel my feelings easily anymore

it's up to you to undo the ties