Hoping you'd be able to step up...
For a boy who couldn't be a man,
Stepping being the father he can not be.

I try to forget the sins of that man,
Which hurt me and scared me for the rest of my life,
taking the whole of my heart and the whole of my love!

But with every stepfather that comes,
The task is harder and the love is smaller,
And the expectations just keep getting higher.

I don't believe in any kind of love any more,
The gap got too big to fill in by materialistic stuff,
Never will I be able to get better and start to love!

I hope I can someday not be broken,
My heart scattered into a million pieces,
Don't believe in any kind of love anymore.

Haven't got the will and the time,
For another candidate to come and try,
The role isn't easily filled with just some KIND of love!

The whole walk and the talk?
Not enough!

Presents and all the fake feelings?
Aren't going to cut it!

You have to take on all of the stairs,
Every step you take gets you the knowledge,
Getting higher nearly ready to be a STEPFATHER!

I was young when I learned to sing
to the rhythm of fists
flying through the air
like birds too angry
with the season to call.
I was young when I thought a tune
could drown the sounds
of my mother’s sobs
crashing through hallways
in tidal waves and monsoon misery.
I was young when I carved
songs in the wallpaper
and into my delicate skin.
I turned bruises into syncopated beats
and scars into major scales.
My stepfather hated music
but I was an ornery child,
and I sang of joyous things
just to see if his soul could dance,
but instead,
I got two left feet in swift kicks.
When I was was young I was afraid of sticks
because I thought my body was a drum
to be beaten and battered
to a punishing rhythm.
I was young when I learned
that the taste of blood on my lip
was merely the flicker before the intermission;
the finale would be a grand display
of pomp, punch, and unlucky circumstance.
My mother was a tone-deaf drunk
who never learned to sing.
She belted begging in B flat octaves
like it was the only note she knew.
She wept an ocean of sorrow
as I sang my S.O.S.
“God, save our sinking ship.”
“God, save our sinking souls.”
“God, save our sorry stepfather from himself.”
And when I thought to cry,
I sang my little heart out instead.
I sang of devil's meeting end,
and I sang of daughter's finding love,
and I sang of mother's finding
strength enough to leave,
and I sang to the happy families
that only existed in sitcoms,
because my stepfather hated music
but I hated him far more.

I talk to my cats,
to the shadows on the wall,

I talk to myself,
or I don't talk at all.

I'm swirling in thoughts
that won't stay away.

I spend far too much time
wasted this way.

Stuck somewhere between
depressed and numb,

My only reprieve,
sitting in the sun.

Moments while the rays
illuminate my skin

I don't feel so trapped,
I dont feel shut in.

The more I get to see you, the more I want to;

The more I get to listen to your voice, the more I want to;

The more I get to talk to you, the more I want to;

The more I get to be with you, the more I want to;

The more I get to be loved by you, the more I want to;

The more I get to love you, the more I want to;

(After Lorca)

Now in Vienna there are ten pretty women.
There's a shoulder where death comes to cry.
There's a lobby with nine hundred windows.
There's a tree where the doves go to die.
There's a piece that was torn from the morning,
and it hangs in the Gallery of Frost—
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws.

I want you, I want you, I want you
on a chair with a dead magazine.
In the cave at the tip of the lily,
in some hallway where love's never been.
On a bed where the moon has been sweating,
in a cry filled with footsteps and sand—
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take its broken waist in your hand.

This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz
with its very own breath
of brandy and death,
dragging its tail in the sea.

There's a concert hall in Vienna
where your mouth had a thousand reviews.
There's a bar where the boys have stopped talking,
they've been sentenced to death by the blues.
Ah, but who is it climbs to your picture
with a garland of freshly cut tears?
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take this waltz, it's been dying for years.

There's an attic where children are playing,
where I've got to lie down with you soon,
in a dream of Hungarian lanterns,
in the mist of some sweet afternoon.
And I'll see what you've chained to your sorrow,
all your sheep and your lilies of snow—
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
with its "I'll never forget you, you know!"

And I'll dance with you in Vienna,
I'll be wearing a river's disguise.
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder
my mouth on the dew of your thighs.
And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
with the photographs there and the moss.
And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty,
my cheap violin and my cross.
And you'll carry me down on your dancing
to the pools that you lift on your wrist—
O my love, O my love
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
it's yours now. It's all that there is.

When butterflies fall in love, do they feel humans in their stomach?