My hero’s stand up straight. They salute me with shaking hands. And still I wonder how they don’t break. Maybe they keep some sort of composure to preserve the title. Maybe they aren’t human. Maybe their spirit is simply bigger than mine. I’m roaming through ghost towns I know all too well, trying to find the ghosts. Familiarity begging me to come home, but the haunting around me screams to stay away. Empty people without a smile greet me like the stranger that I am. I guess my namesake is a memory. What hurt them ? It could be the same thing that hurt me five years ago. The same things that make you sad can make you proud- like knowing you once had a hero. Angels and hero’s. Angels and hero’s. Angels and hero’s. Can both exist ? Tell me the truth. Who spoke sad words into your soul before leaving? Tell me why every dying person just needs to rest before they slip away for good. I have nightmares about loss. About the sky staying grey on that winter morning. About someone I called a hero. About how it fucking wrecked me. It eats at my sleep and I wake up with the taste of blood in my mouth. My mind aches for a feeling of home, but I became the empty spaces weaved throughout these ghost towns that neighbor each other. It’s a map of everywhere you’ve been. I drive through the winding roads in silence. I become the torn pavement. I’m the evening chill. I’m the fog that touches frozen ground. I’m the limbs hanging lifelessly off trees. I’m the fallen leaves. I’m the hero behind every storyline I wrote when I resided in these areas and I will save myself again and again and again. -AMT ©️