You're a fancy dancer, I can tell by the way you talk
shakin' your hips like ****
I wanna get up on that
and I want to bathe in your hair
and your legs,
oh yeah

The words rushed out
I had no control
I never really meant them
But I didn't want to see that hole

The hole that is caused
When you resist and don't speak
When you don't say what they need
And leave that trembling silence so bleak

I hate when that happens
When the silence gets too loud
So I spit those words out
And for that I am not proud

I wish to say what I mean
Not what you wanted to be true
Now I live in regret
And lost sight of what I knew

The truth can be hard
Harder than all those easy words
When they pile up high
And tower over the birds

Soaring over your head
Threatening to crash down
And expose you for you
When you can't afford to have them around

There was part of me
Who wanted to live that lie
Who wanted to become those words
No matter how they left me blind

I am grateful though
Living in my regret
For now I am free
Free and able to someday forget

So goodbye easy words
I wish you well
You tumbled out so freely
When it was too soon to tell

Goodbye, goodbye
Farewell to you all
I am free and ready
To brace myself for the fall

I will suffer and agonize
If it all means well
That I can move on from those words
And never again yell

I will never say those poisoned words
No matter how tempting
For they lead to destruction
And only left me empty

I was afraid of the storm and the power it possessed
I thought it was rude and angry
It was a large man thundering out vicious words like rain
I watched as veins flashed across his face like lightening
I would lay terrified in bed as he lit up my room and darkened my skies
He would turn off all the lights if my attention was divided
Forcing me to listen to his every word
To absorb them like rain on the dry earth
As I grew fear turned to awe
Instead of hiding, I sat outside and watched the beauty unfold
As the Earth came alive and I watched clouds fight like children in the sky
They tossed and turned, dodged and tumbled over each other
But when the booming, motherly, voice of reason could not reign them in
Her hands would flash out like lightenings to separate them
She opened the skies like floodgates
The clouds dropped their faces to the Earth as muttered apologies poured from them like rain
As awe turned to jealousy, I knew I was wrong before
The storm was like me and had a story to tell
Unlike me the storm was brave enough to say it and strong enough to make you listen
I wanted to make the world hear me
But no matter how I tried, how I screamed, the world shut me out
So I used the storm
I wrote my story and sent it to the moon
And the thunder tells my story for me.

you’re like an echo,
a pattern on a rug,
a wild rainstorm without the flood


I drew an X and O on a piece of bark 

with my red lipstick but I didn’t have the guts

to put it in your mailbox



that’s a true story

you met a *****

golden smile and legs

when we last spoke, I told you life was absolutely great

dishonesty gets the best of me
when really I’m alone here

trying to scrimp and save

every moment you and I have made

and I could die

that’s a sad story
and a true story

patterns
echoes
come back to me like a boomerang

I haven’t seen you in clarity
in a very long time

you’re like a horse race track
and I am galloping, number 9

running for dear life,
with blinders on the sides of my eyes


running to run, not
running to win, just
running for running
away

I never found it easy to stay
in one place
in my head, even in my heart
they’re fickle body parts

it’s easy to take one step too far away
it’s not easy to stay
it’s easy to regret anything
and I do all of these things over and over again

I’ll probably always thirst for distance
but if you need to,
you can find me in my garden, where I plant
a lot of thought
I’ll always hope that someday,
you’ll recognize your loss and look me in the eyes again

I’m like a hayseed
having a hard time surrendering to the wind
and I could die

still, maybe I am barefoot at your door
while the neighbourhood is asleep
drawing X’s and O’s on tree bark or two stick figures kissing
with sidewalk chalk

I dreamt you were with someone else
you drank lemonade and held hands,
a perfect summer romance

it made me want to die
it made me want to write you a letter and then burn it
but I decided to repress it all instead

I’m sorry for leaving
and then coming back
and then leaving again

and though I only saw you last week,
I haven’t seen you in clarity in a long time

it makes me lonely and when I feel lonely,
I speak to the sky
whispering secrets, you see,
it’s the only thing I can always speak to without lying

the truth is a fierce thing,
like wind can be,
it can be merciless
and I am just a hayseed
having a hard time surrendering to the wind

oh, the truth
it echoes, even in a field

or perhaps
just in my head

you can’t run away from the truth after you tell it to the sky
because the sky is everywhere,
always watching

always listening

always there

and that kind of makes me want to die

at the desk, applying for jobs
there is coffee in my cup
and paint in the creases of my fingernails,
on the wall, a whiteboard with new song lyrics
and a list
of things I need to buy,
of course, once I have the money to buy them,
which brings me back to the desk
which an empty bottle of Cabernet Merlot
sits with an empty glass
and notebooks and a mason jar
with cloudy brown-red water
from the bristles of my paintbrushes
my coffee is cold
the french press is in the kitchen
but my flatmate is filming in there
so I’m stuck at my desk
with two sips of cold coffee left,
applying for jobs.
I feel very fragile
right now,
partly because I didn’t go to a job interview
today,
partly because I didn’t go to a job trial,
on friday
though I don’t want to be a waitress
and **** modelling for art classes scares me.
there’s a plant on my windowsill
named Lucy
and she doesn’t have to do anything
and there are two vanilla candles and an incense holder
with lavender incense burning
but **** all the things that
"bring peace"
like small plants, candles, incense, crystals and photographs;
I want a healthy and clean life,
so I have these things
part as a protection
from my own mind
but to be perfectly honest,
I’m at the desk, browsing jobs online,
saving them for later into a bookmark folder entitled
"Wellington Jobs"
instead of actually applying.

I love the way you look in the moonlight that filters in through the window
(I love the simple fact that you are here with me in the moonlight)

Your hair smells amazing
(I inhale you every chance I get in every state you are in and hold it in my lungs because I want it to intoxicate me)

Your hair looks fantastic
(it floats downward from the top of your brilliant mind and cascades like your thoughts, pours like your words in our half-drunk midnight conversations)

Your smile is so pretty
(when you smile at me it lights me up and makes me feel, if even for an instant in this time of my life that is so shambled and broken, whole)

Can I have a hug?
(hold me, embrace me, envelope me, if only to let me know you are real)

Let’s go to bed
(where I can confuse physical love with emotional, take refuge in confirming our relationship with *** because it’s easier than risking my whole trust, easier than leaving myself bare before you with the certainty that one day, eventually, you will tear my heart out and crush it)

No, that’s ridiculous. Why would you say that?
(I’m terrified that you know me so well)

I don’t think I can make it tonight
(I’m terrified that you know me so well)

Can’t we talk?
(I get it, you backed away because I did but I’m going to blame you because I can’t blame myself, don’t you see? Can’t you see how utterly self-absorbed I am but also woefully lacking self-confidence? I refuse to share any of this with you, I can’t let you know it but if you saw it I’d acknowledge it, at least I think I will, and you know me so well so why can’t you see it)

I don’t think we should see each other anymore
(please, please, please make me realize how utterly foolish I am. Please slap me and scream at me)

Say something
(your total lack of reaction destroys me more than anything)

You look really pretty
(so beautiful, majestic, magnificent and I love you. I love the tears I have made you cry so silently and I hate myself so much for this moment because of that. I love you and only now as you walk away do I realize it)

Fine. Go.
(the ease with which you leave is painful and will linger for years)

…
(Please stop walking, please. I was wrong. Please.)

She, consisting of
he and s as in **** and shine.  

She is love and hate and frustration,
she is aggravation
she is admiration.  Is
she the complete, meaning
he is waiting to be completed, or does
she need
he to be fully
she?  It must be both, because
he does not feel whole without
she, and
she is not all
she without
he.  

She is just s waiting for he.  
He is just there waiting for
she to take a part of and be a part of.  
She and he could go on, but shall we just see
she alone?  
She is a quiet one with the hush built in.  
She makes a pucker or a sucker, and a grimace or a grin.  
She is kind to the mouth and good on the ear, soft and warm and smooth.  

She is good whiskey.  
She can get he drunk like good whiskey.  Drunk on
she,
he will stumble around running into things,
he will fall down, and
he will need help up.  
She will always be there unlike the whiskey to pick
he up to carry
he home.  
He is nothing without
she.  
He is just he waiting to be within
she.  Of course.  

He is short and childish, blunt and stubby.  
She is long and elegant, sensual and curvy.  
She rolls out of the mouth with grace,
he is shoved out with a huff and a puff.  

She is the word that makes
he be.