I wish that somebody around here would ask questions.
I wish someone would demand that they be heard.
They'd ask you, "What are your intentions with my daughter?
Are you making her life better, son, or worse?"

And I wish your father'd stayed around to meet you.
I wish he'd taught you how to treat a lady right.
I wish he'd shown you how to love and understand me,
And give me peace of mind so I could sleep at night.

And if you fathered my son, would you stay to meet him?
Would you teach him how to treat a lady right?
Would you show him how to love and understand her,
And give her peace of mind so she could sleep at night?

Or would he have to wonder what his father looked like,
And would he look up to his uncles for advice?
Would he feel the need to grow into a cold man,
And would he never hear your voice in all his life?

But my father is a good man, and I love him.
I hope someday you'll be a good man, too,
Because I never have loved anybody better
Or wanted anyone like I want you.

I wish your father could've been just like mine
And helped you grow instead of walking out.
I wish that he had grown up and then stayed at home with you,
And taught you more than how to leave and doubt.

I loved someone, once.

A person tall and thick with thought,
Whose reach was wider than a mile;
Whose words were low and filled to brims
And ordered my whims single file;

Whose eyes made blood flush under cheeks
And wandered nary from my own;
Whose air was just enough to bind;
Whose arms were heavy as a stone;

Whose breath on me could wear me down
And raise me up to live anew;
Whose presence haunted my mind's halls;
Whose love was too good to be true--

And it was.

Somewhere along the way,
I realized that that person didn't exist.

He never had.

The child dreamed of flight since she could first walk.

She dreamed of stepping not on earth, like the workers--
Not on workers, like the rich ones,
And not on rich ones, like the gods, no.

She dreamed of stepping on nothing.

She looked first to the stars, with a hunger.
She wanted them.
She saw the spacemen with stars in their eyes,
Stars in their pockets--
Stars wherever they wanted them.

She looked at the lack of workers, rich ones, and gods.
She looked at the quiet.
She looked at all the nothing there was to step on.

With her feet on the earth, packed into painful solidity,
She looked at them and ached.

The sprinklers would wash away the guilt
And we would be whoever we wanted to be.

If you saw me in the street today,
You wouldn't recognize me.
You'd see a woman whole,
A woman independent, harder.

If you walked down my street today,
I don't think that I'd know you.
I wouldn't see the boy I knew
From back when we would study.

When we studied happy endings,
I'd forgotten it was practice.
I forgot that we'd be young for years
And how we both were growing.

We learned a lot those days,
When we both grappled with rejection;
How to handle hurt and hate
And falling out of puppy love.

The girl I was thought that was it,
As silly as I was in school.
Remember what we said?
How we would move out in the snow?

It's funny, really, nowadays,
And look at us, both happy!
I never thought in high school
That we hadn't met our matches.

We were practicing for them,
And I just didn't realize at the time.
I think we practiced well back then,
I think we make them happy.

If I was single, I'd be there in a wink.
You mean a whole lot more to me than you think.
We're just talking, this isn't so bad.
Cheer up, you're the best friend that I've ever had.

She broke up with me, I gotta go.
No, I can't talk, just thought you'd wanna know.
Please wake up now, I just need a friend.
You're better to me than the whole world has been.

How do you manage to do it?
You're a better friend than I deserve, and I know it.
I want to return that to you.
I hope you know that I'll always be there for you, too.

When I'm ready, we'll go on a date.
I wanna be with you, too, but I need you to wait.
I'm so glad that we're talking again.
I wanna be with you, sunshine, and not as your friend.

When school's over, I'm buying a bus.
We'll fix it up into a home just for us.
We'll live up there in Canada's wild.
We'll just go 'til there aren't any people for miles.

Meet me outside, I'll be there in ten.
No, I don't have permission, we'll talk it through then.
I like everything about you.
I don't want to, no, but I'll do it for you.

Why are you so mad, what did you hear?
I only want you now, I thought that was clear.
I've got class, I'll talk to you after.
Yeah, I like her, but it's just a crush, does it matter?

I want to spend more time with you.
I'm always at work, what am I supposed to do?
What do you mean, "Over," why?
Okay. Uh huh. Sure. Yeah, whatever, goodbye.

The adventurer returned home years later,
Carrying bags of seeds, stones, and rarities.

He found that his house had been painted
Green and white.
He didn't like it.

He found that his son had been born,
And named "Jean-Baptiste."
He didn't like it.

He found that his wife had figured him dead
And remarried.
He didn't like it.

He planted her the seeds,
Built her gardens with the stones,
Gifted her the rarities,
Then smiled and left her to her happiness,
But he didn't like it.

I have a bag packed, just in case,
So I can be ready at a moment's notice to catch a bus out of here,
Headed northward on to nothing.
I'll be the only passenger, he'll be the only driver,
And it'll be a kind of solitude for us both.
Too far within the trees for loneliness
And too deep beneath the snow for societal woes.
We'll do one another the kindness of not breaking the silence;
A driver and a passenger, content in the Canadian Wild.

I sat there when the world was done,
Just as I had when it had just begun.
A pin drop now and then,
A pin drop here and there;
A pin drop can be heard from on my list'ning chair.

I heard them coming for him then;
An angry king and forty-thousand men.
I poised and reached to warn,
But nothing I declared.
If only mine was more than just a list'ning chair.

I've overheard the mighty fall,
And some may say that I have heard it all.
But nothing I have said;
At nothing I have stared--
No room for speech or sight atop my list'ning chair.

No creature have I touched,
No feeling have I shared--
No room for anything but sound atop my chair.

I've never heard anything as true as what you have to say.
I've got these Feels, and I'm finding they're blinding me,
And all these Feels are linking back to you.

All it takes is an approach,
And memories begin to sing to me.
Their melodies are darling, lush,
If puzzling in their tempo.

And if ever it moves further,
I am brushed over by joyous calm.
I wish to stretch out everything
And bleed each sweetness dry.

The precious things are mine now;
I've kept them all, breast pocketed.
I thought that if I didn't,
They would wind up in the sea...

... Irretrievable, devoid of lovers' touch.
You'd have cast them,
But I've seen to it
They're not 'disposable as me.

The four companions searched for their treasure.
They found the chest hidden under some sadness and opened it up.

The first one looked in eagerly and was surprised;
He could only see the second.
The second looked and saw the first.
Their treasures found, they left.

I looked in and saw consistency.
With my treasure, I hung behind to see my beloved's turn.

The fourth peered in and found a secret,
And maybe, with a sinking heart, I don't have my treasure after all.

Before too long I'm gonna go away.
I'll walk the unswept streets and the humid heats
In the uncleaned city of L.A.
There are things I'm sure I'll break as I make my way;
Laws and promises, hearts and confidences--
That's the sad way we work today.

My heart'll find its home out in the West,
In the form of a man who will enclose my hands,
And he'll spill all his words out and digress.
We'll have four children, then never get our rest,
And we'll apologize when they finally find out that
Mothers do not always know best.

The sun will stain our skin,
And then illness can take us, our treatments will break us,
And we might not ever be whole again.
Then we'll never know
If there will always be borders and pain and disorders
And longing and fences to slip below.

Our children will grow old after we die,
While we sleep in the ground with our roots all around
Or our ashes will wade through the deep sky,
And they will miss our lives, and so will I,
But they'll think of when we walked the unswept streets
And we tucked in their sheets
And they'll smile while they cry.