Plenty of things in life make me smile.
Warm rain, Mexican food, Christmas, new clothes,
old friends, holding hands, sleeping in, the smell of fresh laundry, sitting on the floor, Berlin, walking home at 6am, taking pictures, learning a new word, having my back tickled, coffee and cake, the sound of a record finishing, music, Disney movies, snow, the cinema.
But you,
telling me to smile,
after seven hours on my feet behind a hot bar,
rushing around a shop floor hanging out clothes,
serving food for you to eat,
is not one of them.
And if you're telling me to smile
because "It might never happen",
it already did,
when you decided,
that as a woman,
I must be smiling.
****.
You.
Now I'm smiling.

Do you ever hear me
when I breathe for you?

Move me
Fast through the winding roads
The tumbling winds
The deepest valleys
And the highest peaks

Settle me nowhere

Move me
Across fields of gold
Azure skies
And silver linings
Because no one
Drew a line I would not cross

Settle me nowhere

Move me
Pick me up and throw me
Over the sleeping bodies of water
And the restless hearts of the sands
I am closing my eyes now

Settle me nowhere

Move me
Weave me
Within the greenest trees
Tousle my hair
When the ride gets too calm

Settle me nowhere

Move me
Let the skyscrapers scrape sky
Let the towers tower
Let the roads twist and turn
And let houses be houses
Because I am not far from my own

Settle me nowhere
Until the rain patters
And the beach plays with sand-less shores

Settle
Me
Nowhere
Until I am home

i only  ask  that you do
not forget  my  laugh
and the smell of my
shampoo,       m y
ticklish   thighs
and the  s o f t
f e e l i n g of
m y  mouth
on     your
m o u t h

I've set aside a piece of time to keep until the end
And right before I am no more I'll push it through a pen
But if you don't believe a single word I've ever said
I cannot try to change your mind, I cannot raise the dead

It's not within my power to restore this flesh and bone
And I can only hope that when I leave I'm not alone
I want it to be simple but I want it to be true
The way of letting go of all the ones I ever knew

But in my final seconds as I breathe my very last
I realize my future's an extension of my past
It's just as I remember - nothing new and nothing good
The time that I had kept was only keeping what I could