i used to lay next to you while you'd sleep
and wonder how you could possibly have more secrets to keep
than you've got eyelashes
     you've got more eyelashes than there are tulips in holland
and even that was never enough to keep me from wanting more

it wasn't my excitement that would keep me from my sleep
     it was just that you snore
          that ******* snore
and in my wormy brain
it means that you were subconciously bored
          i always failed to work the whiskey on your breath into our amorphous algorythm
     no real measure for our frosted-glass-pleasure
     just bruises left to treasure
          on our hearts
          and necks
          and spirits

we got good at it
     spending every night
with so much left unsaid
that it was almost as if i could hear it
with my ear pressed to your ribs
     like post-dated reverberrations from all of our forgotten arguments
     echoing through the void of our emptied bottles
     and in the cherry-pits of our chests

it was all just a long line of tests
measured pressures
and recorded reactions
     it was an intellectual's game
     who will be the first to break?
in retrospect
     i think we took turns

and as much as it still burns my eyes
and breaks my mind
to know that there are tears left to cry
     it feels alright
i guess that's the part i always liked
          that ache left in the morning

sometimes i blame my parents
for letting me believe
that love was as simple to understand
     as the plot of a disney flick
they should have told me the truth
     that it's really just sick
     twisted delusions of our infatuated brains
and that the more we try to change it
the more it stays the same
     that the more you say its name
     the less likely it is to show its face

i'll never know if it was love
or insanity
     either way
s o m e t h i n g still remains
and all looks pretty much the same
from this side of the window pane

the scent of your flesh was the same as the smell of the aspens
after a fresh sprinkling of snow and dust
    
      the best things haunt our dreams in scenes of the forrest


your touch made my heart sing the songs of the ocean
that you'd always wished your land-locked lobes could decode

     more often than not
          the magic lives in the mystery


your favorite game was the chase
the way the wind slides through your curls at a sprint
the taste of the sweetness as it tries with all its might
to evade you in the night

     if you love something enough
          it will never really escape your grasp


still to this day
you're the only one who could make me blush that way
as if all of the sun's rays were magnetized to the apples of my cheeks
solely to play a part in my school-girl reaction
to the cabaret way you articulate


     *fate may be cruel to lovers
          but nothing is as cruel as we are to ourselves

she used to have this way about her
     a magical capability to hide her deepest secrets in the center of her sentences
     leaving you unsure if that's how she really meant it
          yet somehow certain
          that you walked away from said verbal exchange
          with far more than she would ever know
          that she was capable of giving away

she sat in the kitchen
   frivolously underlining passages in her brand new bible
      nodding her head
      occasionally pressing her hands into her chest
"yes" she'd whisper
   with her blind eyes shut

         every ******* needs a crutch

every hour or so
she'd leave her hiding place
   to shove her misunderstanding in my face

"god only loves us if we ask him to"
"you're a sinner. your sins can only be cleansed with the blood of christ"
"our lives gain their only meaning when we ask christ into our hearts"

oh yeah?
   is that right?
      how'd he find any room in yours
      when you keep it bound up like a hostage?

i tried with all my might
   to remind myself that i am a spiritual being
   that i want no one to hurt
      even those who waste their precious seconds plotting ways to hurt others
   to craft everyone their own kind of pain that they can name
      and later
         help you look up a cure in a little black troubleshooting guide

but i cracked
and i snapped
and i didn't feel bad

don't you get it?
are you paying attention to what you read?!

the whole ******* story is about LOVE...
   about loving everyone
not only under certain circumstances
   but every second of every day
the same way we're told that he loved

calling yourself a christain is the farthest thing that you can do from actually being christ-like
  
he was a good guy
      like robin hood
         not oprah
   you won't get a free car
   or fleeting fame
      all you'll gain is peace
      and clearly that's what you really need

but you also need to remember
   that if he's watching everyone's every move
      like you say
   then he too sees you going out of your way to ruin someone elses day
he sees you ignore the hungry man asking for change
he sees you preaching things you've never practiced
he sees you looking for ways to bend the rules without breaking them

if christ came back
   he wouldn't be the sharp-dressed man seated up front
      whom you try to charm the pants off of with your faith every week
he'd be the homeless man outside sitting by the steps in silence
whom you marched right passed
   without so much as a glance
      or a simple hello

         he'd know you misunderstood the entire message
         flash a toothy grin
         and go right back to spitting prophesies into his brown paper bag
             
            but most importantly
                  he'd never rub it in your face that he thinks you've got it **wrong

i want a voice like the heartbeat of the metra tracks
     as it shakes its way into your brain
while you're half awake
and daydreaming
     'bout something sweet
     something that means nothing to me
but it's cute
     see
          
          the way you can't help but smile

i want to be that cringe of excitement in your skull
that you can't stop daydreamin' about

  and...
if you could find yourself fascinated by my freckles
     and my flaws
     and the scars all over from all of the near-fatal gashes
     and the heaps and heaps of stardust rusting to my eyelashes
     and the fact that i'm always talking about love as if i'd actually had it
          i promise
i'd never say you were a fool

i could wear you like split ends
or a crooked grin
     a handsome pair in inclement weather
     somehow better together

not two halves
     of one whole

two wholes
     thriving on each other
      
          cigarettes and coffee
          whiskey and beer

mmhmmm
     we're in the clear from here
nothing but salty tides and starry skies
          straight on 'till morning

thoughts of you come in pairs
     like stanzas of the most beautiful poem ever written

yes
          you

you read like an open book
tattooed with elloquent confessions
and articulate interpretations of the thrum of existence

i'd trade any gem
from the shelves of my library
to be able to run my fingers down your dusty spine once more
     and read your vertebrae like braille
my phalanges eagerly slurping the sweetness of your flesh

oh
          you

sole proprietor of the laylines of my fingertips
     well versed in the science of touch

the world-class professor of the art of feeling
     you taught me to feel everything
in a blurb of sunlit hours

ah
          what i'd give
          to be a page-number in your story

i wanna feel like the ink in a pen does
as it crimps and curls and dances its way across a naked page

i wanna feel like the page being filled

give me a pulse like a double-time war drum
     thudTHUDDing towards crescendo
     with a cymbol-crash ache
and flesh that winds my spine and river bed curves
     like a stretch of highway on a midnight drive
     that fades into the face of the moon

gimme some of that star-stuff sparkle in my pete moss eyes
a few of saturn's rings 'round my hula-hips
and a solid kiss
     right on the lips

               yeah

when i grow up
          i think i'd like to be in love