I'll beg for you.

I have all my Stone Temple Pilots CDs packed and ready to roll. Lessons well studied from Jacob in the firm refusal to give up the music I love because it hurts, instead I embrace it because it belongs to me and not my ghosts. That lesson took a few tries but now I have it down pat.

I'm filling my veins with coffee and my bag with warm clothes, because tonight we're heading to the farm for the weekend. Just the four of us, and since Nolan is now Ben's sponsor, he'll be somewhere safe.

Still Remains drifts through my head this morning, a song I know as well as the number of heartbeats each child puts out in the space of a minute when they sleep because I've never heard them breathing when they rest. A song I have inked into my soul via my skin, stretched so thin sometimes but still armor against the past.

There's excitement in changing routines for the weekend, exchanging the usual weekend for horse rides and barn work and food that always, always tastes better. Bundled up in Nolan's quilts, we'll sit in the rocking chairs on the porch and drink coffee, and inside we always find a roaring fire and hot chocolate late at night. Sleeping where the stars are closer works wonders. Being together works wonders too.

Pick a song and sing a yellow nectarine
Take a bath, I'll drink the water that you leave
If you should die before me
Ask if you can bring a friend
Pick a flower, hold your breath and drift away

See you on Monday. (In which I whine about feeling like my glasses make me look old. Perhaps it's that I can see myself in the mirror now in full HD rez and hole-lee, does something ever have to be done about what stares back.)