I lay on her lap
She began to play
With my hair

I looked up to the sky
Her eyes shone brightly in the night
And melted my inner ice
With her sweet, warm smile.

i dread the day you learn
for the first time that
you can't just love all
the darkness in me away

and no matter how much
you care i will still toss
and turn at night and scars
might still appear on my skin

i dread the day you realize
that you can't cure me
and sometimes all you can do
is stand next to me and
hold my hand through fog
pouring out of my ears so black
and thick we can't even see
each other's faces

i dread the days i can't
get out of bed
the days you want to
take me out and all
i can manage is a prettified
shell of myself

i dread the day you learn
that sometimes no matter
how hard i try i still can't
pull myself together

the day you learn that
there isn't an answer
you can give that will
save me from my fears

you aren't the first person
who has tried to love the
darkness inside away
my family and friends
have given it their all
but someday you too will learn
that if love could
cure mental illness
the world would be
a much better place

I saw the squirrel this morning
swarming up the bird feeder
after the nuts
then he scampered across the lawn
into the bushes
out of sight
Then all the birds came back to the feeder

You may own my water
but you can't drink my distance
I brew my coffee
far too bitter
Makes mornings
Mellows the litter
blowing along a curb
in the shadows
of houses
worn
by winter

I see you off--
in some warm cottage
Watching
plantations grow the beans
for all the world it seems
has been a subsidiary of
some agglomeration

Little brown people busy
owning nothing
work the soil
while I die without
moving the earth

I am the other woman
the one that never gets the man
I am all his lustful thoughts dreamed up
I am her nightmare in a can

You see she will never give him all he needs
and he will never leave her a fact I now believe
She has his family and his past
and I am the woman who keeps coming in last

I am the other woman...
I know I am not everyone's biggest fan
but I loved him the way he really wants
and the way that she never truly can