"There's a flower. . . I think she's tamed me"

Oh, be like the little prince, won't you?
You took me to see the stars
I didn't know then that he was up there

Its my favorite story, you told me
About a fox and rose and sheep and a little prince
So when we left each other again, I went and read your story

He was the only boy in the world for the fox
And she was the only flower in the world to him
Oh, how this is too often neglected

I am waiting for you, my little prince
Oh, won't you tame me?
We can laugh with the stars and hear the bells

Has the sheep eaten the flower or not?

My heart weighs heavy
Tipping this scale so far
Until I hit the ground
So unsure if it's the alcohol
Or these feelings
That keep me so far down

I just want to breathe
And I want to hold you
But I don't know what that means
I compartmentalize my feelings so much
All tucked sweetly away in the empty crawl spaces
Until I look in the mirror and don't know who I see

I want to feel something
Anything but this sadness leaking out
Of all the holes in all the closed doors
My mind is a maze without a map
Even though I've created it myself
I still don't know the ceilings from the floors

How can I look at your face and not hear her words?
"Just stop hurting people" she says
Trust me baby all I do is try
I try so hard to not leave scars on these beautiful souls
My instinct is to help the broken
Though as soon as I'm ready to leave they're ready to die

Babe I promise that I see you
I haven't known you long but that's never been the issue
The problem is that I can't see myself
I'll feel this love for someone one minute
And the next I could ice them out for days at a time
Left to wonder if it's actually me or just the liquor off the shelf

I don't believe in God but I'm praying now
Begging someone to help salvage this broken soul
Yet I'm still surrounded by silence
In this life you have to save yourself
But we all need help sometimes
And too much pressure leads to self-directed violence

I'm trying so hard
I just want to be ok
I just want to be free
Then I get nights like these
Choking on this random sadness
Left to question if this life is really for me

But I'm trying
And I'm growing
And this will pass one day
I just hope until then
You love me enough
To want to stay

GOING ON WITH ME

Never did like my own
birthday.

All that cakes and candles
stuff.

You could keep it.
Strictly for the birds.

Every day was my birthday
far as I could see.

Birthdays...who'd
have 'em....eh?

But to have one
is the only way to go

on to be
someone.

Miss one and
you're gone.

Every birthday
always called my Mam.

After all she did
all the hard work

when push
came to shove.

All I did was arrive.

Thank her for
having me.

"Ahhh  go on with ya!"
she'd forever  laugh.

This always the best
bit of my birthday.

Celebrating
my mother.

For a long time
I've been dreaming
of being the younger me
my heart leaning
into those dangerous places
like the wheels on a road grader

Nights to remember
seeing big lips in the moon
blowing its black and bad sax

Dreams of night sweats
and my lost loves
dancing in the fields
where the moon, a white cow
goes to chew her cudd

Dreams deep in other cities
and towns where photographs
all signed love are slipping
out of the frames of many mirrors

Dreams of an old soured pillow
waiting for its case to be called
shanghaied by the cold sea
a long ways from the mountains
where I once found young love

Dreams of a storm coming
still many miles away
hearing the wind in the trees

The thunder wakes me
like a backfire on a moonshine
run with two trembling fingers
finding me riding shotgun.

I want to do
nothing but good.

But when doing it
for me,

There is guilt in
being selfish.