I
hope
she's
worth
it

I burn and melt
Liquify and drip down
From the inside out
And like the candle wax
Left from each of our nights
I cool again
More crooked than I was before

You’re the moon over the ocean
And all the light in between
Rising high,
Washing over me
In your love,
I’m clean

Trials and trying times we have
Young hearts beating down a burnt race track
You know I’d bet on yours
The man with a plan kicked in a few locked doors,
And stumbled through the frame
The angel he’d seen in his dreams
Cried tears that fell to his name
Written on the floor
It’s nobody’s fault,
So what are we fighting for?
I would’ve given my all,
Then just a little bit more
Biting the hand that holds
Will turn it fair and cold
In defense

I wish you were someone that you are not

Even clues that aren’t about you,
You apply them to us
So I guess I don’t have to worry about the digs I drop
For you to find in the moss

Lover, I thought my life was going to melt
And fall off the bone
Instead it flashed before my eyes,
Now I’d rather be alone

You know.
You ******* know.
You liar.

You are twinkling and breaking me apart
I cannot help but stare,
And thank any kind of God
If I had forgotten them before,
All the words now dissolve into my hair and skin
Like salt in the lake I’ve been living in
Underwater and untouched, unopened to anything
They call me home to shore
My body weeps and seeks heat
You gather my limbs like a bouquet
Blooming through your chest and arms

But you woke up didn't you?
Let it go, as it flows
All okay

Frost over my hands and feet
Break my fingers off one by one
So I’m reaching for you with saucers devoid of joints
Easily shattered with sharp logic
Only you have read the book before,
And I am usually the one so eloquent and collected,
Falling just short of being bound together

Crash against the surface of my face with a hundred-mile chill
Disappear into the trees again
You are not the forest under elemental pressure,
I have never been the storm
You arrive in me as the devastation
That, laying on my broken spine,
Flooding eyes fracturing the skylight,
I gasp to gather meaning from

You move,
And send me a mile out
You pour, and I bloom
Endless stars and open space
Bleed from my open chest for you
The very greatest,
Of all creation
Burns hot and white where your lips left it
Your eyes filled with rain
And all the green buds that have flowered again

My love,
I have starved endlessly for you
And in that stabbing, rolling ache of hunger
I found that emptiness was pure
So bare and raw that when you came to me,
You could fill all space
Uninterrupted by a single lingering remnant
Of what you’ve made me long forget

Did you heal me overnight?
Or did I do it on my own,
Just like I crafted the rest of this show
Is there something you just won’t say?
Or millions of them
Let’s spend a night in Vancouver
And take turns testing, then
You soak it up just like me
Everything you are is everything I see
I’ll take my time
I’ll linger while we say goodnight

Multiples of flurrying life
Dancing on the country green
My hands warmed of the cup,
And the company of your chest,
I slept by the fire all night
I am all woman and untangled muscles
You stand bare and newly awake at the window
Blinking,
And I cannot tell who is doing the reflecting
The lawn,
Or the aventurine
That through which you see the world
That from which the most subtle gaze
Unfastens me

You’re bitter,
So you won’t pick up your phone
Is it the principle?
Or would you rather be alone?
I know I’m a whole lot
To swallow in one pill
But you made a promise
Keep it in your pocket
Or at least keep it close
Your silence at my spite is all I need
To know we love each other still

I saw your face for the first time in a long time, and it was no longer mine.
And the pain was gray and pink, and soft, like gum, like gums
No longer able to bite
The smile I’d snuffed with confusion
Seen with the eyes you no longer flooded
I cannot say what it was
But it had fur and it breathed deeply
And I loved and bled for it
Now you are yourself again
The paint, before it dried
Before we ever touched it

Just a simple flick of your tongue in your wrist
To purge your mouth of all of this
To let you pretend that you forget
You tease me only to justify it
How you get set on fire
It’s easy to fib when you’re a ***** liar
But I love you so
Let’s find a high rise up in Toronto
Promise to hold me tight,
I’d do it for you, though I hate the snow  
Make sealed promises
See how it goes

You,
Like a rose garden in July
Being fed and nurtured by the Sun
All sights and sounds of things grown pure
And of the divine
Not crashing and breaking like waves
But softly swaying and holding a reflection
You are a lake with every color dancing on the surface
Natural, and occurring no matter what
Like the seasons

There are many things to be said,
A tiny bird in a square patch of light
You locked the door but forgot to close it
So it flutters at every banging crash in the frame
Wind will be a guest always, coming in to the city
We have historically excused ourselves and shouted, projecting, over it’s head during dinner

Maybe one day you will hold me close in bed, in the after-dark,
Whispering, and my laugh fogs up your chest

We listen while it rummages for a snack in the drawer

I poured a bucket of rain water
Straight onto your bed
And as it all seeped
Down into the sheets
I was left with pebbles in the end

Baby I suppose
I’d rather be soaked
Than suffer in the drying sun
Or never have known

Having to hold back,
In my bones I feel the ache
Every step my pointed toes beg to take
Toward you
The tide you pull, the waves you break
Every muscle I own works to stay in place
Lover , if you crash once too many
I won’t slip and drift out
I turn my head away, I turn around
And walk on water

I do not have much
Of your arms, or legs
Or fingers,
Enclosed,
Or opened wide
I do not have much of your naked eyes
Pooling wet around the green,
Specked with golden fireflies
I have not many of your lines,
Remembered well
Much less memorized
Much better
Is every word you tried
To skip across to me
A smooth stone from the lakeside
So that maybe
I could see the signs,
Come to know your heart
In my own way,
On my own time
Once I settled in with the crickets
To play the flute in our goodbye,
The saddest melody,
My only lullaby

I’ll move my feet and hands
One by one and side by side
Churn, flow
To make the lights flicker
The wheels go
A waterproof bag of pieces
Dragged through frames of time
Not yet in the room, and not leaving
Faithless lightyear eyes
Sleeping between plaster and wall
Leaking a sticky, red hunting trail
Through moments
From now,
They will only be moments

All too fickle, quick and glossy
As the silent and raging tide
Blinking at me like a twinkling planet
Like Mercury,
I’m convinced you exist
Though to see him bare
Would be to nearly miss it
Heavy handed is the reckless tongue,
All too rare is the fire
Able to weld two jagged, mangled pieces
Undeserved and virginal is the prayer
Making them one

I’ve no body of ivory or pearls,
Even then,
I would blend into the blankness created
So seamlessly painted
If not to give you faith,
These pages upon pages
Are soaked violet in vain

Finally, I hold close to me
That I do not know why the stars flicker in and out
Before going dark once again
They are beautiful still

I try to tend to the wreckage on my own
Because the sun is now so bright
And I hope maybe it will dry the rot and water-logged pieces
But I don’t have enough water to make new blood
The salt clings to my skin and holds on
How close to the animal body is the voice of the heart?
How close are death from dehydration and falling out of love?
Is there anything you could do that would ever be enough?
Was it your plan to **** us both,
Just to be right all along?
I wish I’d fall asleep and wake up taken
Taken from you

Go ahead and let the bottom take you,
These pieces are better split apart
If there’s anything left that could be called ivory and innocent,
You’ve found it preserved, wrapped up on a shelf in the dark

Then, there are the million shades of green I’ve tasted
Sour, bright, unstable, often man-made
Take me far into something natural
Let me know when you get there safe

In that moment,
I would’ve traded all my luck
For you to just stay
My final night till this next moon,
As far as this moment,
My last with you
I would’ve said anything
For you to sit down
And resign yourself to the humming sound
Of our hearts in our ears
The sheets slipping like your car shifting gears  
And burning every fence
Stretching out the minutes like lace
You tie around my neck and wrists

How the sky glazes over in clouds,
And your raven’s heart
Keeps me just as freezing cold
As icy drops on a window
Hoping for a spring thaw,
Followed by a summer glow
Here,
They feel out of place
Come the next holy day
I’ll make peace with them again
Settling where I belong
Among the meadows and fog

The foreign tongue you speak
Is not of a country known
Or believed
I welcome quiet,
Though complete death of gesture
Deafening silence
Is what you give to me

I do not know why the stars flicker in and out
Before hiding once again
They are beautiful still

I saw your name on a furniture store sign,
Bright across the highway
Among all the fluorescence and so peaceful
As if I could say hello to the graveyard with love,
As if the Best Buy and supermarket were also debts we had squared
Together

I returned home at 4 o clock
The latest time I’ve ever known
Through your voice I found my echo
Through your voice I found my home

And in the pitch black, hopeless moments
There’s one place I always go
Your fragile pulse pressed flush against me
Your soul making me it’s own

Please spare me the boulder- push
I am strong but I’m not strong enough
Please give me a piano-key life
All our darks are above us
All our futures pale white
I imagine you forgive yourself and see my insides
How you were no match for a trick of the light
That I didn’t know ******* when you died
And sometimes you have to bleed
For worthy days
Peaceful nights

You respect yourself so little that watching me love you completely, with all I have been given to give, made you lose respect for me too.

And what a dark fate that will be for you to meet.

We are most alive when we cannot see clearly and the next step could **** us
But to get home we have one less than two options
Again and again
You’re the heavy rain and the thick, ****** wine
And I’m driving and I need glasses badly

England dreams in bruises of sunsets,
Hydrated, ******
Running pomegranate and blue-black
I don’t remember the first time I chose this kind of cold
Maybe these icy feet
I’ve only just grown into

It may **** me to be inside any hands not grown from your golden body,
But I choose tigers
I give them a glossy mirror while playing a flute
Or harp strings
They finally rest
Hell,
They purr

Though it does make your eyes roll backward, and your stomach reject an entire day
If only you could see how I crush them
You’d be so proud of this flower
Given in bunches to poison kings
Coming to bloom on your kitchen table
Making your house into a home

Please **** the floodlights
Keeping our entire house awake, climbing the walls
Put a tiny heart inside my body,
Becoming everything from nothing at all
Tell me you’re shaking, even though you hate me
I will keep you warm and still
Shut the door on who we’ve been known to be
To its death,
Let fall your will

When you have nothing else to say,
And the country is quiet
I’ll take us down to the river
She is heavy and overflowing with debris
Blackened, cracking wood
From every fire set at our parties of starting over
We divide our acres and part
I hear the hiss of your sleeping breath in the rain,
I feel the train in my feet
Like the heat under my cheek from the blood in your heart

Every night I spend awake long enough to see the sun rise
In the pale baby blue I see your eyes
Every morning I catch quick enough to see that first light
I remember how alive I left our first time

An ebullient, sparkling bird I am
On my toes, pinning about the wooden house,
Curling and placing each golden strand
As a game or ritual to become full again
He comes to string me up as lights
The things I ask are of “what does this mean?”
For his, he gives “to create our world, I need light to see.”
I force the door with wool wrapping my feet,
As if he’d ever hear my racket
Before his body felt it

Perhaps her shocking, clean blondeness
Will cleanse you of the hate you carry
For the very body that indulgently hosts it
You’ve let the bar drag the lake so easily,
And I could never compete with your love of mediocrity
So what’s left to gasp and squeal, drown it  

Darling,
You can burn.

Everything you are has become gelatinous,
Soluble in water
A spinal chord and neurons
Without a blood pump
Or an inner voice to tell you where to put it
Somewhere between a sea being,
And spit on a window
One is beautiful,
The other is human
You belong to much less

You are not you, you are not trees, you are not mine, you are not a leaf in the wind or a sunbeam through the curtains  
I do not trust this new model
You are dangerous, dangerous. Not like a rich and ***** night,
Like rats crammed in a basement
Like an overdose

I cannot ever resist the velvet sweetness
Until I’m wretching into something shallow and barely one degree from the carpet
It shows in the violent colors of an underworld rainbow come from my jaw,
How I underestimate you and you dehydrate me for days afterward
I’m a fly in a humid plastic bag
I’m an ant with a breadcrumb breaking my back
With the top of my head and my toes
I feel a dangerous house
But I smell something to bite into
Harsh, giggling
Like honey whiskey

If tears to the muscle build compounding resolve,
Their fibers sewing from blood new strength  
My lungs could hold an island afloat
My heart could pull a tank

I think you were a dream
Real as anything, but I can’t have it again
You thought your eyes were like the December Pacific Ocean,
Gray
All I saw was green and deep water

I think to myself,
If you were to leave me
As soon as in the hands of tomorrow
How imprinted,
Pink and new
Would I want your outline
Over my shoulders and hips?
I do not take each new morning for a fool,
For I have tasted years without you
And you have seen death
In your brother’s eyes
Onto lonely wrists,
Your hope splashed and dried
I behave in terms of forever
For I have felt last chances
Fluttering in my hands
I let them bend and crumble
I wish you’d think of our possibilities
Evaporating peacefully
And what you’d do to change fate,
Do tomorrow

If I’m a waste of time,
Then you’ve had a lot of quick wins
You must have put a lot of ends
On your dime
If I’m a waste of time,
Then you’re a sewer swallowing soap
Mouthful by mouthful
You bubble up
If I wasn’t worth the mere seconds you spared,
Caring for my heart
Or tangling your hands in my hair,
Then the letdowns you’ve seen must block the sun
Towering high,
Becoming one
Because if my undying love,
My tears and torn throat
My nails on your back
Entire nights on the phone
Every train I that took,
Your favorite boots that you own
Were a waste of your time
I’m sure your ticker is broke

I should’ve known
You’d feed me to the forest floor again
I’ve read medieval tales,
Guessed each gluttonous end
The maiden dies by the sword of her love,
Or resigns to playing pretend
I won’t stubbornly awaken
I won’t touch my flesh
To your jagged, poison edge

Your iron briars wither
Down to their sharpest point
Through the deepest wood and bone
They slice

I’d be myself
And ask if you want to go with me
You’d say no
I’d rather the cold
To fall asleep in the backseat
Completely lose my time and place
On the drive home

You never deserved this palpitating heart that keeps me up in the darkest dark, the brand new you I created was so much better, so much better that you hated him and hated me for creating him and forcing you to see you could choose greatness, and the things for which greatness is made, and the incredible orange happiness of mornings waking up with a yawn into my neck and hair. You hate him because he is the you that you chose against again and again and it is him who sleeps with me at night.

To drink you like a garden martini
Full of crushed blackberries
I’d **** the seeds through my teeth and let it burn
Painter,
Please strip and re-color my tongue

And I am number fifty
The drive home cracks at the seams,
Though there are many skylights on the horizon to eat
And I fool myself
I plant, water and let myself down
I memorize this address
Like a back-alley mistress
Or a difference
To how I usually sell
I’ll see you in hell six months from now
In the pillows
Breathless and full of doubt
Like a real dream
Or a kids room full of tokens to keep
Absolutely obscene
How you split through and blood-let me
I’m a master,
And much faster than anything you challenge
Blood-bonded and free