Sometimes I apologize
to silence
for the wrong
notes

Something broke inside me.
glow-stick soul
snapped
one too many times.
There is nothing here
but broken glass
the darkness remains
undefined
un-defied.

Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?

I hold nothing against you.
These spines are in my chest
clutched like a sacred heart grenade
with fingers too close to let the blood through.
Driven in desperation
cyclone of nonsense and the neurotic
marred by nothing and marred by all
and the red dash trenches
with no man's land slowly decreasing
but too many futile-over -the-tops
for far away victory.
Fruitless as the wavering charge
one step forward
two hundred back
Stalingrad psychosis.
Shell-shock guilt and the stark reality
of one's own mind and the prisons it builds.
Peace is a forgotten word
not even whispered in dreams.
Freedom drowned in the mud.

Leaving me is how you stayed
tragedy and memory work the same
they spin the lead back into gold
your lips they were my alchemist's stone

But you're still standing in my head
more perfect than the day you left
I blurred the scars and darker days
it all looks perfect from far away

Chorus: I fell in love with a memory
With something that you'll never be
It's funny what the mind can make
and leaving me has made you stay.

All is fair in love and war
Though time is still their only cure
Forgotten tales of a thousand lives
All men live and all men die

You left your heart and ghost behind
and your words burn in my mind
you're probably gone a world away
but leaving me is how you stayed.

Chorus: I fell in love with a memory
With something that you'll never be
It's funny what the mind can make
and leaving me has made you stay.

I want a lover like the evening sun
half shadow half light
wanderer of dappled paths between leaves,
sojourner seeking the reflection
of life in darkened eyes.
He will taste like Pheobus
bright, amber honey tongued,
the golden glow spilling into the deep corners
light has yet to reach within me.
But his arms will fold like Erebus,
the comforting dark
of purple shadows behind lids falling for sleep
the peaceful night, quiet, cloaked
in the solemn strength of dying stars
and the last whisper of northern lights.
Remind me what it is to know
the depth of dark
without leaving the warmth of light.

Crouched in a bath
in a house in my hometown.
5AM and the moon's out.
Kevin hands me a rolled up bank note,
and tells me I'm innocent
all in one breath.

There's blood on my hands,
rolling down my wrist.
Big, fat, poppy teardrops
blooming like the cherry trees
in my university.
Home is a funny thing.

I'm not a cool kid.
Just a drugged up, loved up,
half pretty girl with a good brain.
Mad
after the wrong people
in love with every
broken soul.

I'm just chasing dreams
and welded differentials,
the car turns and screams.
One hand on the steering wheel
and one on my thigh -
can't you just need me for a weekend?
Can't you just
sigh your little promises
and chew my ear?