Tock, tock, tock
Blocked, unblocked,
Hurt me? Tick
Stop,
Did I learn?
....
Tock, tock, tock


Sometimes my life seems like a blur.
I loved once? Did I love again?
Did I just pretend? Based on that first love, did I fake to love?
I married once

I'm naught but lost

Tock

Rip open my veins, blood-stained teeth bare
Snapping ribs as you unwrap them-
Crawl inside, child. Home.
Two beating hearts as one
Blistering beneath a polluted sky
You are as hard to look upon as the sun,
My one biggest lie
I need you I need you I need you

But glazed eyes, dried tears and split seams,
I could never keep you

My light shines from within, weather or wither
Though it seems to shine lighter when I am watched by others
Than when I alone am watching my candlelight flicker
Aching for the bonfire I was
When we were together.

The world is in upheaval
If one more person leaves I'll-
Find myself in a trash fire
God I've been building my funeral pyre
For so many years / I don't know how to not /
Let everything I touch burn

And I yearn
For a day and a time and a place and a people and a community
Where I'll not be in such upheaval
But I don't see it happening any time soon
So I'll burn
And let it all consume
In fire I can't control
I know

's all I know
But the sticks and stones I built this fire pit-
with
They're falling apart just like everything-
with it
And I don't know where I'm going from here
Please believe me

Somebody listen
God hear my smoke signals above
I love, I love, I love
And it isn't ever enough
But I'll keep setting myself on fire,
On fire

And every stone thrown
Every spark
Every dark desire deep in my heart
They fuel the fire burning bright
Beneath me
Believe me

Tied to this godforsaken stake
Filled with hatred they've all made
Me into this
I don't want this
But I'll still strike the ******* match
And hope to god this time it lasts
Cause all I have is fire burning
down

Forsake this awful town!

That's all I have-
Is fear and hate
And all the memories that I've made
And now I'm seeking for something else

I'll drown myself in the deepest lake
I'll try and find some sand- **** - I don't know what else
Puts out fire, when it wants to burn
So let it burn

Exhausted in this ash-filled pit
Trying to dig myself out of it
But all the world is up and gone
And I don't know how to go on

So let it burn, let the fire spread
Let them know the way they've led their life
And all atrocity has fueled this fire in me
Let it burn

Let it burn, let it all be naught but coals
Let all that's left within my heart, burning
And even if I leave this place
I'm leaving it a burned disgrace
And nobody can tell me now
Where to leave the fire.
Or how

Off-color, dun, waste in the tepid air
Keepers and thieves, we are,
With shovels and keys
Grace my grave not, love, I am not there
I know, I know you’re scared
Bile may rise and boil your tears-
Children are better at hiding and seeking,
We, we wretched few-
Follow the notes once sung through our blood
Dusty music-box time capsules
Back to when we couldn’t lose
Unloaded hand in hand, building bridges over
Quicker sands than grains in glass
You took my fingertips, we carved our names into the bark
with the needle-points of ribs

You, you told me we’d go together

I’m sorry it isn’t true
“Here lies, my lullaby”- the skitter of the leaves’ whisper
What did they whisper in your ear?
Of stars and galaxies?

Of a rotten fantasy

Ah, ‘twas the one, of our flat. Off-color, dun,
Baited wasted breath in the tepid air-
Was it of keepers of keys?

No, shovels-

-And thieves?

And thinking I was too young
To love you.

Love, when we break up, I'll be fine
I'll cry an ocean and go sailing-
I'll turn the page and write a song.
I'll miss you, when you cross the line.

Pray, don't try to charter my course,
I'm only missing things which never came to pass
You're the one I wanted for forever,
I tell the waves, the fish. Laying on my skiff,
Crying stardust, dry and stinging
Reminiscing

But don't worry about me, I'll be fine
I miss the way you said your dreams were mine
I miss the smell of snow and melting in the kitchen together,
I miss summer flowers, afternoon showers,
Empty highways, when your dreams were mine,
I wonder if they ask you about me..
But I'll be fine.
I'll be fine.

They say only time can heal this wound,
But god I wish time would get on with it.

The only remaining scar is the one you caused,
Not any of the ones you couldn't bear before
It may have been incidental,
It still itches
Why did you leave, love?
Leave me in stitches?

Lost, drunken haze
He'll crawl in one of these days
Slip his arms around me like he always did-
But who am I to kid
He'll never message me again
But I'll still lie here, sodden and prone to forget

He took RDR2
He left the shirt I gave him in my car
He was long gone - before I had even driven far
Waited downstairs for the cops,
While I sat on our bed in shock
Night ended with me in the hospital,
He in the stocks.

Lonely and heartbroken, back in my home state
Observing the mess we made
While neither of us can bear to hear the country songs
We mired our love in,
He's probably passed out drunk from confusion
While I'm left up and sobbing,
Wondering how I get it so wrong so often.

Sunshine lived on in your summer-grass eyes,
Though through the cold I never understood why.
Until you said my name, as I hewed flower crowns wound 'round my knees,
And you pulled me up and kissed me.
Then I knew the sun would never shine as bright as your smile
And any love I'd know again would be a lie.
Because you fixed my heart as well as your friends' trucks
And even if every project you started felled to Weier's luck.
You ever strove to accomplish more.
And even if I was ever a child of darkness, I sought that summertime love, to my core
I reached for your sun and the stars we both reached for.
I was always reluctant to realize, then as now,
I was never going to be enough, so how do I
Still call you the one I most loved.

I'm not quiet.
No, I don't make sense.
I only try to make small recompense.
I can't sleep. Never could sleep.
Not that the racket you keep on helps at all-
But I've still tried counting sheep.

I'm explosive. Corrosive.
I guess I've eaten up all your will and want and love-
again.
But I thought you understood, but then...
I've never been quite right about anyone before.
I just want to be accepted for how I live
Why do you all seem to love who I am until I'm susceptible, and then you want more?

Hindsight may not be 20/20 after all.
Because after years of thinking I had the answer,
I still have no idea what I could have done
To keep you.
To still have you.
And even now, I fall.

Aside the eaves, parallel the skyline
The sunset, lightening, thunder,
Warmer, sat beside the fire,
Ignited through sparks created through strangers, new
New, love, when we were new.
When promise warred with past delusion, we sought
The safety of a hollow shell, a valley closed in by mountains,
Two hearts beating, perfidious farewells.
With no constructional thought of 7 months later,
It was Time Immaterial....
For I saw you then,
As I see you now.

Slippery glass staring at me
My arms flung out as still as the snow
Gold cascades down my shoulders, you see
I reached out but I tripped on my toes
Little red rivets flowing as satin
Soft on my lotus pink cheeks
Cracks break spiderweb words, greek or latin
And water so hot through the ice begins to leak
Blue glazes my dull hazel eyes
Broken leg or broken wrist crushed under my bones
You'd come running, but for the opening skies
Under my head the fish start to moan
And all I want is to be taken home

The mirror me frowns
My fingers carve shavings out
The pristine pearl skates on my feet drag me down
I whimper but my voice makes no sound
The water envelopes and my scratchy winter coat,
I just wanted someone to take it off
No longer can move nor think of your name
You turned around a moment too late
The pain searing, singing into my marrow
Leading me to this harrowing fate

It's like being stuck in a cave,
I want to find the light and claw my way out
But sometimes I wind up deeper than before
I don't want to lose my family, found or otherwise, nor my lover
But oh, did I mention the cave is underwater?
I only ever wanted to be a perfect daughter.

Nobody asks a mountain, who stands beside them.
Nobody asks a river why it's rushing to shore.
Nobody asks why a fire will roar, and
No avalanche is asked why it couldn't hold on,
No hurricane is asked why it couldn't stay at sea,
No twister comes out of hypocrisy.
Still... I'm not a force of nature, though I tell myself so
I'm just a woman, begging someone not to go.

They're watching me, in the reflection off the water,
The sunspots behind my eyelids,
The tread of my tires.
They're watching me from the corner of the room,
The feedback when I sing into the mic,
The shadows in the corners of my eyes.

I'm not possessed, but the angels of death,

Keep watch, over their own- made flesh.

You don't want to talk, and maybe that's okay
Maybe you don't think anyone would care, either way.
I just want to tell you, I think your soul is beautiful,
I think you're worth the fight.
I know you're doing awful, I know your world is gray, I know you're not alright.
I'm not here to tell you it'll all work out, I'm not here to pick you up and dust you off, I'm not here to bring color into your world.
But I am here to tell you that I think you're an incredible girl.
He/they/whatever.
I'm here to tell you not to sever all your ties,
I'm here to tell you to save your goodbyes.
And save your lies. You don't have to be fine.
You can be fine some other **** time.
Right now, it's okay to break, and break hard.
Until you're better, whether that's years or days,
I'll be your faithful guard.
You can scream, shout, cry an entire lake.
You don't have to cling to your last card,
You can have played your hand, had your one last stand,
It's okay
I'll be your one-man fan, reminding you that what you want to do, you absolutely can, and will do anyway.

I am not in love with you anymore.
It took me four years to not be in love with you anymore.
But it's been five years since you left me,
A year and a half since you last messaged me,
Three years since I last saw you,
And I still love you.

These small towns remind me of you.
Of how I dreamed of living in one with you.
Of how I met your friends, like I now have met my current boy friend's.
Of how you wished I'd have stayed with you,
How did you not know you were the only one I would stay in one place for?
I miss you.
Team Eternity, Gerry.
I will love you forevermore.

July. Evening sun beating down across my shoulders, clawing hot talons into my back. I listen to the waves, gently lolling against the beach as if asleep.
Rolling back and forth, breath. In. Out. I wonder what the ocean dreams about. Does it also wish to escape? Does it also dream of those who once swam within its waters?

Maybe water is the only thing to really know my secret.
What it's like to always be flowing, unable to hold onto one shape
(Or one person, without drowning them).

There isn't a cloud in the sky. It's almost... pale yellow, I think. Across the horizon. Pale like fresh-squeezed lemon juice, bleeding out into the sea.
There isn't a soul on this beach. Not unless you count the *****, bruised-peach shells skittering across the rocks,
And I have no place to be.

Please. Leave the light on.
I didn't mean to be gone so long.
I didn't even know what it meant to leave a light on,
Until I saw the porch light through the fog and trees.
So please.
One more time, for me,
Leave it on, to guide me back to where I need to be.

Wish I could tell you I remember more than that bouncy house, our last fourth of July. Wish I could tell you more than just goodbye.
Wish I could even tell you goodbye.... Wish I could call you,
Tell you... what my life is about, now.
Tell you what I wish, how....
Nine years. Nine years, now.
Funny what you remember year-to-year, funny what you miss.
Funny how I can still wish this,
That you'd come out to the park with me, and we'd put off fireworks,
See, then I'd feel more clarity, like my head isn't below water,
Like we will always be
father and daughter.

Bathwater turns cold,
On a scorched July eve
I'm dreaming of another night,
Wading into the sea
Of planting daffodils and pulling weeds,
And wondering if you ever missed me

Tears splatter, fall, splash up from,
Contact on, concrete, a little pale square on a street,
Littered with them, squares of pink stars, petrichor
From all the tears, candle-lit, cameras stopped rolling-
About an hour ago. Before the roses, before the ipod left
To play the songs writ by the dead, mind stalled, music dead
As dead as the artist mirror-touching that star, as if
They can touch and sense the memories we left
As if the camera crews had any idea of the intent-
Of the connection with him, what we left there
On a cold street in Hollywood.

I do not want to talk to him.
I do not want to talk to anyone who's abandoned me,
Ever again.

Even when I split my skin,
When I feel lost now and again,
I know I'm not broken.
I'm just somewhere I've already been,
And if I pulled out of it then,
I will do it now, all over again.

Play our song, you won't come back,
Be everything you wanted, it's too late to ask
If you still remember me
I'm trying to tough it out, be all you'd have me be
It doesn't even matter anymore
That I'll never see you standing at my door,
I just want to be the person you wanted me to be
Because that's all I ever wanted to be.

Keep me warm through the storm,
For it is calling to me
In my dreams, I'm aware, and I can't find the means
To be scared.
But the storm, you have seen,
Doesn't care, if I'm aware, when I'm awake
It will embrace me with nary a thought
To who I had been
When I was human.

Here in Canyon, I've got a crush on the girl next door.
She's athletic to my shut-in,
Don't even know if she likes women,
But I knew it as I walked into her office when,
I wanted her advice, some hike to hit my core
The butterflies when she poked her head in,
Said "can't you watch the movie?" and then,
When she invited me to hang with her in her store,
I wished it could be more.

But see, I'm just a bartender, and she's the straight-laced girl next door.

Chime, crystal, chilling,
Your voice leads me through the darkness,
Freezing, willing.
The only light from moon on snow,
Promise of wolves hidden from the moonglow,
Where we howl and prance and shake our fur
Barking laughter over the tourists we lure
Free and free as nature herself, here
Where danger and death are always near
And we follow the call of having no confines
At all

Ghost kisses across my skin,
Gleaming white from the blade,
Music notes seeping out under my sleeves,
The days I cut with rib-bones like a knife,
They dreamed they could save me,
Drag me from the depths of my self-hate sea

I said I was made of stars, they burned bright,
In phosphenes and fluorescents in the night

Said love could save me, be the one thing that wouldn't hurt
Only self love saved me, though I'm content to have the memory of notes unsung,
Of nights unspent,
Of kisses too long ago to have had,
to have burned.

I know you think I'm a devil in an angel's skin,
Wanna fight a holy war, that you'll never win.
Trynna fight hellfire, with the flames of your desire,
Tempt me with the promises of original sin.

Think you can tame me but the odds are out
Keep sayin' you'll save me that's not what I'm about
Oh but you're still by me and keeping score
Baby I'm just human and I'm nothing more

Tickle me pink and,
Paint me in orange, I
Want warm colors,
While I laugh out the storm I,
Want to roll down green hills,
And bathe in brown dust and,
Cry neon-yellow, if I want to,
Well I will, just

Let's swim in the blue,
And stare up at the grey,
Watercolor the town red,
For another purple day.

There're torn pages, fire licking, floating through the air,
Naught save ashes, paper, charred on the ground
There's no way to read them now

I admit, the first light, flame, flicker, wasn't easy
I was guarded and yet unburned,

But the second light, that one was easier,
And it seared my skin, as well as within me,
Carving out this hole, well it hurt

It was never you. See, you don't exist.
But the people who love you,
Who feel much like this,
Write words you might say,
And things you might do

If you were real enough to help a girl
Find meaning from loss, and uncurl from the pain,
And return to the world
And see, wondering makes me feel
What if you were real? And what if I remain?

There are people who help others, through stories of you.
And I think you'd be proud. If you were real. If you knew.

The day I wear my blue dress-
My hair up in a braid.
Those dark blue heels on my feet,
And dark veil held by bridesmaid,

The day I step under the trellis,
To the altar surrounded by men,
The priest, and groomsmen,
That day, beneath the sun, well it's...

The day I'll cry, walking down a white carpet,
Blue sweetpea, forget-me-not, cornflower, in my grasp,
I'll stand before matching eyes, and of his heart
I will only hedge to ask

That he love me, in provision, in familial, in sickness,
In health,
For immer and for the poor side of wealth,
For all our days, and the rest...

That the day I'll be wed,
Not far after the day we'll have met,
I will finally let the one who loves me true,
Be the one where the words, will finally be said.
In the way only we can say "I do"

And just like that,
I know my magical world is gone
It ended in a drunken haze,
On the last note of a higher-octane song

And where did the magic go,
When they spent the very last of it
And can I get it back,
If the old lyricists ever re-writ
Their last musical pieces
Capture the stars again from the sky
And re-map the venues with them,
To play one night like we will die.

Until last spring walks across the barren craig,
Flowers bright gold and blue in her hair,
When the sky unmasks the waking sun,
Siúil liom

And when the rains grow weary of deluge,
Making way for the moon across the Burren
Until the waves that crest the cliffs,
Flood over Moher

And when the last cairn is reclaimed by earth,
When it embraces the stones, the last castle wall falls,
Until that day, filled with ancient song,
Tá mo chroí istigh ionat

It is all well and good for nature to shun humanity,
For humanity has done nothing but destroy
And though there are those who exercise empathy,
There are far too few with its imploy

And even if we tried changing ways,
It would do as well as wishing on fey,
For it's too late to undo the damage done
And the great prize for this earth we gamble,
Will be tantamount to none.

Frail, beautiful butterfly,
Kept inside a net
Carnivorous and short-lived,
Crushed within a palm,
Like a bruised flower petal,
Longing to belong,
Growing inside a season
Trying to stay strong
I am back on watch,
Kept inside a bubble
A bracelet falling off and lost,
Broken, without a latch,
And trampled for my trouble,
I am back on watch,
Dangerous, carnivorous,
Poisonous as plant, grotesque as butterfly
I am strong, vibrant, eclectic, a warning
I think this is why, it's why, and why.
I am carefully guarded, and as easily
Discarded
Though I try, I try, and try
For butterflies only have a season,
As plants flourish and die inside a season,
So this is the reason

Don't ask me about the future-
I just let go of the past-

I'm floating in melted gun-metal
I'm firing nails into the sky
Alone on this planet of red and she-devil
I'm emerging as a butterfly-
Piano keys of ivory and emerald,
Finished in exotic leather.
Dripping in pearls and ostrich feather-
I play on and on, to the die
That's been cast on a hand-drawn tabletop map
Lined with seafood bibs
I laugh as my lungs turn to dust
And wonder if this is all there ever was-
I'm floating in aluminum, above the skyline
Peering down on this world I create,
The tin-foil stars around me, oh how they shine
But it's not enough to sate.

Goodbye my quinoa islands,
Beaches of grain where my toes sink,
I'm dreaming of better editorials that ran-
While my thoughts brought me over the brink.

I'm trying to love him - the way I should have loved you,
Like someone who's grown, like someone who knows
How to heal with someone, how to slow
How to forgive, and how to talk
%^&$, how to calm down and how to unlock

I'm trying to give him peace
I'm trying to find my own release
I'm trying to let go, find how to say no

I'm trying to love him - like I should have loved you,
In another time, with a better mind, with a clear conscious
And a blatant state of intent, with the words of love I kept hidden,
If I'd been better, what then? but I,
All I can do, is fail to love him,
The way I will always love you.

It's the soft, aching, tender moments
With the cold Seattle sun low in its grey winter sky
It's the washing machine humming and churning
It's ******* at the dregs of tea leaves in my mug
It's a culmination of harmless, yet empty, moments,
creating a yawning gap-
What should be, what will be,

Well, anything could happen before that.

I crave an old romantic, poetic love
Of broken chimes and crushed foxgloves
Of coffee stains upon the table,
And early light slipping through the window
Of shuttered eyes and tired hearts,
Of hopeful lies and ancient arts,
A love sweet off wild honey,
And of fresh bread and melancholy
Of battle wounds and salty tears,
Of lasting throughout the years,
Of endings bitter and yet cathartic
Of weathering an endless arctic,
And love with a thread-bare string,
A wish, a tender, tethered thing,
I crave an old romantic notion
Of tested, sure emotion
And love, that which does not age,
Manifests so easy, off the page.

Sometimes I wander to my broken heart, though,
I whisper the names which used to make it sing,
I take it out to the Ocean
And cast a line out to find the missing pieces
But what I told you, the truth is,
I wouldn't want them back
Because then I'd miss this,
These fishing trips.

My ex deserved perfect
A man's wife kind of wife,
An honest, hard working life

He deserved a woman who could be kind,
Compassionate and intuitive with him,
Laugh with all his friends,

A wife who didn't question too much,
Made and cleaned up after lunch,
Someone just good enough in bed

Someone smart but not too well-read,
A wife who would follow where he led.
A woman that he would happily wed,

Is a perfect woman I could never be
(And I hope one day, that he can see
In someone what he once saw in me).

A perfect woman, is what he sought
And he deserves perfect,
But no one is perfect

So that's what he got.

I used to be part of someone else's story.
So I know what it's like to come in, unannounced,
To read the sticky chapters before me.
To leave enough pages for when I'm not around.