Step 1: bow to your partner and hope they bow in return this is the first of many false acts of kindness you will receive
Step 2: move forward. A dance of this variety will require close quarters, and may result in attachment
Step 3: hold on. Get used to your partner leading. It’s time for you to be less than, that’s what you are. A scar left on them because you, you are the one to blame, right?
Step 4: glide right. You’re right they say shes left but you know they’re wrong. This song is on repeat and you know the only way to stop is take a seat but if you want to do that refer to step 3 this dance is not optional.
Step 5: follow her when she moves back the threat of her leaving somehow makes you stay. The day is not done. You are not about to lose her you are not about to be the cause of destruction you are not about to break a heel trying to pull away so balance on those sticks you call shoes
Step six: go left. your partner is right and you can’t question a rhythm.
Step seven: step back
Step seven: evaluate
Step seven: is your chance
Step seven: your body says run
Step seven: your feet are frozen
Step eight: hold onto your partner, you must get used to her leading. She says Do not stop dancing, not even if the music stops.
Step nine: who are you to question, glide right because she hasn’t left
Step ten: move forward, it will take her aback. Somehow you’ve found a way to lead
Step eleven: now you are the one who has left, but that does not make her right
Step 12: step back. Turn off the music. Bow.

vines, so virile and verdant, grow in the golden light.

like pythons, they grip concrete pillars with all their might.

cracks and wounds appear, and dust pours out from within.

they grip harder still and wrap around the pillars now so thin.

tree trunks to pencils, the pillars now appear to be.

there was a forest here once, of sparkling cement trees.

You noticed me like lightning
Between the darkness your eyes flickered
In the movement and the night, I could only
                        Still
You caught me among the glow of streetlamps
I was wasting away with the oil

And you lit me
From across the storm
And I was blazing in an ocean
    of you
And you know what,
I have never known anyone
who spoke like thunder
but touched like                  
                               rain

If I had a time machine,
I'd have done this, I'd have done that
Taken that job, worn that goofy hat

If I had a time machine,
I'd save the world, and rescue those in need

If I had a time machine,
I'd live each day different

Never being afraid of what others might think,
I would undo any mistake in a wink
If I had a time machine,
I would be who I really wanted to be
A person of respect and stature,
People would finally look up to me

Or at least,
All this I tell myself, but it's not really the truth

Because if I actually had a time machine,
I would go back to my youth,
And instead of what I chose the first time
This time,
I'd choose you

there is more than one type of cold.
there’s the cold from that winter wind
it blows through the window
with the hole in it and it sneaks around
the curtains and comes up
through the floor
there’s the cold during the summer
when it’s ninety degrees in the shade
and you turn on the a/c in the car
and it numbs your fingers
and the backs of your arms
there’s the cold when you’re sick
and ten blankets couldn’t reach the chill
that’s made its way inside
and your eyelids feel the fever drifting
there’s the cold that arrives when you’re scared
when you’re nervous
it nestles just under the skin
and you’re losing feeling in your fingers
there is more than one type of cold
but you’re the only one
that ever made me freeze.