Bedpost gold.
Common contours.
Bare blankets unfold.
Unraveled slack.
Treasured hazel tundras gazing back.

Hollow silver.
Lavender lace.
Stitched up smile.
A diamond ace.
Balanced on a crystal brim.
Faded toil.
A violent grace.

Tease the edge.
Carve out reasons why.
Flood the bottom with excuses not to try.
Convincingly deaf.
The solutions they tongue
are gentle reminders that you were born to be young.


Can you disengage my mouth
My drive by eclipse.
Halt a passionate war with the shape of your lips
Black out shades of grey
Catastrophic way to stay.
Draw a line without an end
or break the heart of your best friend.

This is a relentless dance

Lipstick prints lead from empty, cracked pedestals

She jumped, but not high enough.

Looks for his eyes and gets turned to stone

Now she can roll through it all

As smiles break, seasons churn, and he drifts out to lose

Treading years in his invisible exhaled wake

Everyone wants to trade

She is alive

A painful commodity, too thick to shake

The wind blows hard as the world spins down in her warped eyes

Why can’t she feel it?

Standing alone and untouched

Nothing moves her

Screams out with a silence so hard

Stolen voices, borrowed words

The floor is paved with wax

Fire won’t survive here

Waves flow through as she wades through his memory

Breathes in the stale air

Curses the clear horizon

Remembers the current

Claws at the scars and squints till it rains

Storms light up the halls

Strike her again.

Renee’s dreams were as fast as they come

A black hole hovers over her head

Her hands were tied

To the tiers of the piling memories

And wind races through

Till the rain blows behind

Feel the force of the girls who are racing to stand up

Find their intention is stretching for something to prove

Everyone is watching from under an influence

Almost catching a glimpse

Of what she’ll make them believe

The soundtrack goes

and strings unwind

As I ride past my neighbor’s yard

Leads me to the lines our parents drew

Down where we expected to set the whistles off

You’ll find me tracing them a few times more

Renee’s dreams still as fast as they come

The black hole hovers over her head

Ties her own hands

To the tiers of piling memories

If the wind races through

She’ll leave the rain behind

Can you remember the very moment

You learned your dreams were fairy tales

That your ambition is recited

From an endless paper trail

Another year deeper

In the wake of a dream  

The story of prince charming

Echos in your father’s voice

Like he’ll bring your happy ending

Like you have some sort of choice

And like the delicate princess

Boys guard their pedestal for

They’ll tread the unbloomed flowers

Already strewn on the floor

Another year deeper

In the wake of a dream  

Before you pull the hopes

Off children’s bookshelves

Remember, in the end

They’ll just learn for themselves

So go blind from the dress

And the white picket fence

Those paper trail dreams

Will start to make sense

Another year deeper

In the wake of a dream

I can’t help but smile when it rains

Are you burning away out there

I trace my hand across my veins

and can’t help but ask

If you’re burning away out there

Are you’re burning away for me  

Clouds crumble, they fade away

Did you make it one more day

Without diving from the ships

Just to heal your drying lips

I’ll douse my eyes in ashes if a stranger returns

The sand makes heroes disappear

Why can’t you prove yourself from here

Is it lonelier for you to roam

Or to be the one left home

I’ll douse my eyes in ashes If a stranger returns

I don’t want the moon to turn

I don’t want the sun to burn

When they glare

Are you burning away out there

Are you burning away for me

I know you hear me laughing

Scuff my shoes all down this street

These temperamental sulfur sidewalks

Burn as far as I can see

I was dancing, dancing for

I was dancing for you

Hoping you would notice

The searing message that I drew

Exaggerations your routine

Now I’m acting out for more

The finale can’t come in

When it’s never left the shore

I was dancing, dancing for

I was dancing for you  

I know you had to let me down

Now I wish you’d let me up

My blind devoted smiles way to easy to corrupt

You should deafening predictions that never crossed my mind

This teenage charade can never end

When you’ve tucked the curtains behind

I was dancing, dancing for

I was dancing for you

Hope you’d come teach me

The moves that I already knew