Every summer we could go, we'd drive eleven hours up to Colorado to stay in my aunts mountain home. A cabin covered by the trees that seemed towering away from all the happenings, abandoned workweeks for traveling. And much like the thick mountain mist, memories are obscured and I'm learning how much I can forget of the people I used to be and vacations we would take to escape the summer heat But to my parents these are family highlights and to me they only seem like distant past lives ohh Just a few steps from the back porch, a river raging beside us with a calming white noise, as my brother and I battle with wooden swords, with the altitude air thinner than my asthma could afford And the smallest smells still trigger it, in the spring the pines connect me to that distant ancestor, who explored nearby caves and climbed up mountains of sand and that soft kid would sleep in heated blankets in bed. But family photos can't capture who we were in one shot, I need a place to preserve my past lives who they were and were not and stop all this obstruction by my newest thoughts so I'll detail each memory until nothing's forgot. Like when a moped came in a red wrapped bow on my brothers birthday and I nagged him all day to ride it until he finally caved and on my first trip around the block I was run down by an elderly woman and totaled the only present that he had got. She hardly stepped out to see I was alive and just drove off Or when the metal goal post fell on my nine year old head and I was bleeding so bad and my dad on the phone with 911 drove me to the hospital and I got 18 staples to cover up the crack in my skull But family photos cant capture who we were in one shot, I need a place to preserve my past lives who they were and were not and stop all this obstruction by my newest thoughts so I'll detail each memory until nothing's forgot Digging I need to stop treating life like it lives in a frame for me to critique and rip out the borders its not flat, there's no set path so stop self imposing corners And I used to dream of turning into some ideal person but the years keep adding these new layers of perversion but I still look up and stick my arms out to reach but they're getting tired of the miles in between with this pursuit of perfection creating a hole in myself why am I set on digging my own way to hell?

California girl 'til the 70s and you were adopted into a new family so many fathers I'm confused by your family tree and I wish these were the kinds of things you'd talk to me about but you're always asking if I've eaten yet as if I'm so thin I miss one meal and I'll be dead and I always forget that you were married once before my dad but he got into heavy drugs and you just wanted no part in that Then at a party met your partner for eternity gave birth to my brother and started this family And you're the most selfless person in my life but you hide in the background as if you're every other american housewife well I guess the selfless really do hide in plain sight Malibu vacation to see your old house we're driving fast along the coastline when someone pulled out in front of us with our car totaled stranded on the side of the street and never getting to revisit what you drove thousands of miles to see on to a hotel in the las Vegas strip what starts out as a nice trip had to turn into this when I ran out of the room once I saw the makings of a fist and it's funny how my thoughts on a city can change in one instant but this is where you rushed off to get married with my dad and your parents were the only ones in the aisle who had shown up to watch but you were so humble and didn't need to do it up I know the two of them just there to watch you was enough and on your birthday this year with bloodshot eyes you said that your dream in life was to raise kids that turned out half as messed up as you did and the only gift you wanted was for me to say "you did the best you could" in a place so reminiscent of hell sometimes but I tend to dwell in our worst of moments but somehow you still believe everything is fine And its that unyielding kindness that keeps me in line And it's well understood that you like your bottle of wine but how much can I criticize after you just worked all day to provide it's just you ramble nonsense on the theory of life and I just wish you could tell me what you believe when it's not coated in the smell of wine Because I avoid you at all costs in that state as it dampens my image of the mother who's kept my head on straight and I know it's irrational that I try to separate the times that us four interact to keep the peace and a healthy state of mind it's not that I expect all parts to run perfectly year round I'm just running from any situation that ends in a mental breakdown but I understand it isn't getting any easier with your mother passing away last year or just feeling like your children don't need you or old 'cause your husband is younger by seven years but you will keep persisting and I truly now do miss you outside of any necessity and don't worry of age if its brought the thoughtfulness to forgive us for the moments that you're a household slave though our workaholic nature will work us into our graves this ethic you paved certainly has its place cause when I stay busy I can feel you in me and its just one of the ways I will keep you alive long after you return to wherever we derive I will keep you alive

Wrapped up in passivity just trying to be pleasant but the places he goes all warp into horror scenes and illegal morbid dreams actively trying to calm himself down from the stress of his demanding world view that's a destructive restlessness he cannot undo and everything is in extremes so it's easier for his brains system of bookkeeping and if it's not filed away somewhere he'll get away with white lie bullshitting scared of traffic, and strangers, and cold hospital air, or anything that's putting himself out there and Randy you're becoming just who you never wanted to be where it seems kindness becomes less important than your personal priorities and you've always had the image of the optimist you'd someday be but a constant happiness just feels inaccurate and so the artists name is said sarcastically Creating a body of work as if somehow that could earn him worth and jumping from self love to loathing to praising then scolding every move he makes standing beside himself as some mythical version to hide how boring he is as a person cause he shares his idea of a wild night out with that of the puritans And Randy you're becoming just who you never wanted to be you do not handle well humility and you're taking yourself too seriously and these criticisms that come from all the comparisons you make create a senseless envy the kind that is offered by the garden snake and I know he too would eat what is forbidden in their place and its the creative process he praises to raise him from the dead feelings he sometimes has but the process is both the revival as far as he knows and what is making himself decompose and it's this obsessive curse that creates his best days alongside his worst Randy you're becoming just who you never wanted to be someone who always says no and then hermits away to the guarantees of safety just to torture himself once he's all alone over all of the things he does not't know like an ankle bracelet that buzzes when he leaves his comfort zone And its this barrier he sets that holds him back from any meaningful experience

Act I Your hope moves like the hair on your head thinner so you're thinking of shaving it off there's no answer of the time you've got left just let the cancer do the rest and when it won I went to your house but I was only 10 and didn't get to know you the way you deserved, Uncle Kevin but I loved the way you had wanted it then, your favorite food and family with no funeral for damning cause there's no worse way to celebrate a life than the way we throw up grey skies and wear black and white we all hung on and held our breath until your final one came and went My aunt and her longtime boyfriend Greg they'd been together several years now on the surface seeming great but as they were well into their middle age they finally decided to get engaged. but awhile before the wedding date her now fiance was facing an unbearable weight and just last year she was sleeping in bed when a gunshot broke the window of their high rise apartment and she crept around until she got to his office and found him with all of the hurt that he has caused her cause there's no worse way to work through your problems then to think that removing yourself will solve them and this is for the loss of Greg you were only fifty three and no problems that big that you couldn't have found another way out I know you were losing your business but you permanently damaged the person that you lived with Digging II And though you were both cremated I know I'm digging some things up from a painful place that people prefer best we leave untouched but I'm just being honest with what I know and I want my family to live on in a format that cannot decompose I wont let you decompose Act II Even with its share of negativity I won't let that become our family history so I'm pulling you out of your ashes up from your graves and the truth will be plastered for all to see as a document of true humanity full of the highs and lows that define a family and though sometimes it feels like its tearing at the seams I wont let that become the perspective that we see how easily we forget these subtle memories to replace them with whatever is most damaging so I'm shedding my past lives dropping all the dead weight because the self is the only one left to blame for negative traits

When I was 17 I went to a friends house We all took psilocybin mushrooms and I tried to kill myself I walked downstairs to the kitchen and watched my body move as it grabbed two knives from the counter and pressed them to my throat pushing progressively harder now but something had stopped me and though I dropped the knives to the floor the idea has always haunted me and it's always been there but I had began taking it too seriously And weeks before began drafting my final note to my family And somehow with the state I was in I tried to act on it in that kitchen I went back up stairs and got in bed to writhe around in the sheets I thought I felt my body dying so I stepped out to watch me as my organs began failing and I felt my own heart stop It felt like I had lived millenniums of time but I when looked at the clock on the bedside a minute had gone by And I began to convince myself that this was the afterlife And I felt all alone trapped in an endless overwhelming fear that never whispered any answers I was seeking in my ear because I was far past the point of asking let alone to hear only dragging up every deep seeded demon I'd been hiding from for years vision got so blurry until I had to close my eyes and I passed out and woke up at 5 am with a clear head and all my demons out so we drove to the only store that was open and I loved everyone I saw we watched the sun come up and felt grateful for it all Backseat Driver I was only trying to get the universe to reveal itself to me But it was the one exploring all the hidden parts of me normally unseen and I feel like an open book written in some foreign language. trying to translate a truth that could only be found while my mind was vacant and it showed me that I'm a homebody well its true I like to find my way out of plans and reflect on all the happenings that I don't want to forget and that I'm a backseat driver I'll sit out of view and just point out what you're doing wrong But I only do this 'cause I wish I was brave enough to put my own hands on the wheel

I've always been reliant on my friends they pull me out from viewing my life through this lens that's too clouded, cracked, and self consumed in demystifying universal truths that only leaves me trapped in a view that insists that the only truth is the glib glance of a pessimist But I used to be so intrigued as a child felt a wider range of emotions and my brain wasn't compiled of the horror stories of history from lives that came before and the nature of my surroundings I'd yet to explore because as I've grown the universe sure has grown up to expanding with my bones to the observable from the room and I can't keep staring at my phone it gives me no time to process surroundings I'm just avoiding being alone cause I'll end up staring instead at some abyss though maybe that is something I have to face instead of continuing to dismiss the far more captivating world that lives outside of my immediate grip but to their credit and one of my life's greatest gifts the neighborhood I moved to outside were two kids who since have become friends for what I know will be lifelong and we've spent more time together than with anyone else and how rare to form such a strong connection so early on and though we're all in different states now I know we're even more drawn to the days we had of ringing doorbells and playing on lawns but 'til I was nine my brother and I'd cling to only each other and that'd be all that we need just hours of him playing games and me sitting beside him watching and I've always found it quite unique our minimal arguing but now you sleep the days away that I am awake and I never get to see you on any normal calendar day but its not just our schedules that are pulling us away you've been receding from life at a glacial pace finding dreams much more suiting than any reality to face. And I have very little idea where you will end up I spent all my grade school mornings being the one to wake you up for a world and you seem so disinterested by its fronts and only aiming for the simple pleasures to be enough but I see now you're dissatisfied and I know this must be tough I've watched you let your heart of gold sit outside collecting rust because you're one of the purest people this world has ever met but it's hard to say I even know you or name one of your interests both our values on introversion border selfishness but I still know that there is a great deal behind how much you're letting us in

May 3rd, 1964 you were born and soon after moved to Illinois but your parents got divorced and dad was never around and mom had mentally checked out but I never got to meet them they died before I was born both of a stroke and I only know what I have been shown in grainy pictures where I can make out their face but I never got to meet them the dead are slowly being erased but in their faces I see features I'd eventually get how strange it is in subtle ways genes reviving the dead once they were young and in perfect health as I am now but like myself soon close to being forgotten about And I feel bad for my time I've not been spending it with you its just that we've developed such different interests and views but we attempt a great relationship of our own but I ruin the balance and indulge in being alone but I see on the horizon a day where I wish I would've walked down the stairs and poured out everything but I'm too scared of facing where we might really be or to find all we can relate to is archaic memories but you're my greatest teacher and intentions are always good just trapped in a situation that you think compromises some manhood but these outlashes are slowly becoming outliers and I see you now as someone trying to put out their own house fire 'cause there is such a lighter side you selectively show that's being covered by all these ways that you have no control but anytime I see you with a smile or laughing to a joke I want to clutch you and apologize for my years of quiet scorn but I can name at least one more thing that will always be our crutch and that nothing in our life ever seems to be enough no nothing in my life ever seems to be enough and its really just a lack in ourselves we're turning back around it's really just insecurities manifesting as a mirror it's really just our entitlement weighing us down it's really just the discontent of our ego's fear so rip your mind out of the next few years and just place it in the moment before it dissapears

And though it has since calmed down don't deny the abuse that once filled this house front yard fights and endless nights as the family therapist and though sometimes I made it worse I just wanted some basic civility over all of this fucking hostility how do you just throw out all affection so easily and no matter how mad you are there's a respect that should stop you from going that far and much like a storm of violent clouds I would hear my home torn apart forced wait it out and though its the source of my stress I relinquish my anger but I will not forget and as I am up to my neck drowning in flash floods of flashbacks from back then I know you wont believe me but I forgive all the times family lost its meaning I come home you'd thrown the remote through the tv but that's nothing compared to some of the things that I have seen that I will not speak about I don't want to think about it much less have to say it out loud but lets just say full of broken furniture so quickly replaced and apologies that never really held any weight as if this daily routine would never see another day regardless of how you both blow up over the smallest of things and then we throw in some impatience, bipolar, and abrasive nature caused by a flawed childhood you both had but it's becoming a cyclical path that I run from but as I step off I see what is to come unless I express it in this healthier way I will be damned to repeat these exact same mistakes these mistakes from when and much like a storm of violent clouds I would hear my home torn apart forced wait it out and though its the source of my stress I relinquish my anger but I will not forget and as I am up to my neck drowning in flash floods of flashbacks from back then I know you wont believe me but I forgive all the times family lost its meaning I Am Both The Ark and The Titanic and I am both the ark and the titanic bulletproof smile to helplessly manic but the last thing I'd want is for you two to panic when it's always been my job to pull you out of the Atlantic

This logical loss brought on by alcohol bought makes you both act like a horrible person that I know you both are not but its not something that you're willing to stop and your own self destruction is coming at the cost of your son but I know I should stop trying to fix all these holes in a raft I perceive as the titanic but I know you too well just to call it quits and let you live a way I know you loathe to exist And I still cry when I close my eyes and I can hear you screaming still but the house is silent I had conjured some violence while no one was home projected in my brain like it was the real thing I hear your voices sometimes and I feel like I'm going insane I fear that I've developed some mental illness with this irrational way I create violence out of stillness And petrichor all the I smell is what's left of the storm and I've watched my face change forms too many times to recognize it anymore but I'm becoming too attached to a life and I know this too shall pass but I cant continue keeping myself from the time I won't get back It's appearance is deceiving open rooms and high ceilings pouring light on the dark corners of awful feelings but its not the walls that are peeling but the family and feeling that the foundation could collapse on any given weekend that I come home to visit I prefer you at a distance where I can still retreat back to my quiet existence and I can't even drink without seeing your visage when my vision is blurred I mirror your image And petrichor all the I smell is what's left of the storm and I've watched my face change forms too many times to recognize it anymore but I'm becoming too attached to a life and I know this too shall pass but I cant continue keeping myself from the time I won't get back

My parents left to look for a nice place to rest to put a down payment on their final real estate investment and now that their nest is emptying they're downsizing from this two story home and after they're gone they'll move out into an even smaller hole And when they are finally lowered side by side I will throw inside their grave any resentment I have managed to hold inside Cause after they're gone all they become is whatever I say they were and my brother and I prefer to toast a glass half full when we remember Because after everything was broken and shattered all that was left was laughter because the best talks I remember came after the storm of a screaming family member And for all the years I dreamed of moving out finally I was packing my things and as I open my car door to leave my dad he runs out crying harder than I have ever seen and not just cause soon I'd be gone but for the glow of escape I'm sure he saw on my face but I'll still come down to visit and make sure you're fine and we'll laugh as we try to be an average family at dinner time but quickly of the few things that I will never forget you said "I promise to be a better grandfather than dad if I'm not dead by then" because after everything was broken and shattered all that was left was laughter because the best talks I remember came after the storm of a screaming family member And when they are finally lowered side by side I will hold inside myself all of the love they embodied throughout their lives cause after they're gone all they become is whatever I say they were and my brother and I prefer to toast a glass half full when we remember