Except when it comes to Mom. She is, and always has been, the driving force in this family. And sometimes that means driving us head-on, no possible change of course, into a wall.

I fell for a boy from the wrong side of the tracks.

Detailed descriptions, abstract ambitions, relevant observations, your's and mine.

Why doesn't love come with an owner's manual?

I want to open myself, let him inside. But how do I give what has already been taken?

Eventually, it becomes a matter of scale. When the good outweighs the bad, you stay. When the bad is the only thing you notice anymore, you think about your future, or what's left of it, consider options.

Red and raw like my heart, pried from your's, the two beating, no longer together, but a thousand miles between them when only yesterday they thumped in unison.