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Caroline Lee Jan 2016
Isn't it funny how I feel less than feminine
When I'm stalking your tweets in the early am
Inadequacy runs rampant in the chasm of my tender mind
I brush you off again, then tell them all I'm fine

It's been a sorry six years of on and off dependency
I'm trying to understand why relationships get the best of me
I sleep in my clothes and hide the rings around my eyes
Meet you for coffee wait for another part of me to die

I know I run my mouth but
I'm trying to escape the inside of my head
I may not be the hero but
At least I say what needs to be said
The beginnings of a song I wrote this morning in my bathroom.
Caroline Lee Jun 2016
And maybe it was just your short attention span that attracted me
The idea that if I could hold your attention for longer than five minutes
I could maybe hold it for five life times.
Caroline Lee Nov 2015
you are leading me softly
into deep blues and tangled sheets
quiet impressions of your past loves and their crooked teeth
while you, hang me in yours:
golden molars set on a house of cards
(This dissipates and collides)
and you don't breathe you smoke
pouring grey all out into the empty space
skin meets air meets time meets space
you spit ash and I reevaluate
the space between our hands
spiraling again
you tell me to open my eyes and take it all in
your hands on my waist
my hands turning tight
catch and combust
collide and spark your apathy
I burry myself in the face of the ocean
swirling slate hushed under the seabed
the wanting comes in waves as I'm drifting after you
this longing eats holes in my favorite shirts and breaks like the wings of the tender creatures of the night
wasn't their fault they were just drawn to the light in your teeth
and the feeling compels that as the waves break neither of us can remain
I'm just tripping after
deep blues and tangled sheets
quiet impressions of your past loves and their crooked teeth
just hang it and hang me in yours.
King krule inspired. To a boy.
Caroline Lee Dec 2015
I loved you in the blue hour
Green eyes over the table
Clean laundry and winter haze
I'm obsessed with your half smile
Quiet intent this is fragile
But this is how I fall
Late nights spent wondering after your clean lines
Soft skin cold light and I cant get enough
Wonder where it lands in the morning
Tripping deeper under grey skies in the afternoons
And this is it
Catch up on various afternoons I get lost in your pauses
Rough around my edges you make yourself at home
We could live like this
And this just the beginning
As you tangle your hands in my spine we're tangling deeper into:
Disbelief lack of sleep as you're next to me
Sit back sigh in unholy feelings I'm green and gold to your touch
And you're dark blue and grey rolling in the wake of the year of instability
Well liked and rounded yet you're coming round me
The thought of you breaks me
And I'm six feet off the floor
We Clean up you take me out and tell them all I'm your girl
Summer nights and new wine tentative dependency is our world
And with every twist of your neck or subtle laugh I'm back at your hands
Open
Naïve
And brusing blush and wine
This is how I fall
Into your open hands
Cinematic and young
I can't tell where we're headed but I know just how I'll land
Even if I'm unsure of you I am who I am
And I'm yours for the blue hour.
To an icon of longing
Caroline Lee May 2016
And maybe our relationship was brittle at best but still I trusted anyway and gave you my weight
A naive show of faith in what you gave before I had even stopped to consider what our delicate frame could take
And I don't know if it was god or some old ghost but something brought me back after every single fall
So bruise by bruise I somehow in my blind eyed optimism convinced myself that you were worth it all
That somehow there was something cosmicly important in the way you entered and filled a room
But I let you into every part of me before I was ready to be known I let you in too fast and far too soon
So now I keep myself up at night picking at our past trying to find the places I fell through
And I think it's pretty telling that whenever i tried to open up you only heard what applied to you
And I couldn't hate you
I couldn't condemn you to hell
But I can't love you
And I can't wish you well
Some things have to burn out on their own
But I never learned to leave fire alone.
Caroline Lee Mar 2016
Gold lines and the light in your smile
Humid nights and spring intentions I can honestly say that it's been a while
We used to drive around this city until all light was gone
But even after all,
the light never left
Even when I slammed the door and you broke my ribs and the night swallowed us both whole
Just when you thought the distance killed me and that I had lost my soul
The distance only maintained the surreal beauty of it all
The evenings on that hill watching the city light up and the sunlight flee
The evenings I showed you the inside of my chest and you showed me your scars
The evenings we were so high above the city and the smoke that I thought we might go back down
But even angels sometimes fall from heaven
Even Adam had to leave the garden
And so fall we did
Far from the radience of our finest nights
Far from the comfort of each others presence
Far from the freedom of our adolescent dreams of grandeur
But the light lingered on
And it will never be the same but
Maybe we'll live to see the garden again
Maybe we'll go back to that hill
Maybe we'll drive around the city again
Maybe we will
Maybe we will.
We change with the seasons and it's been really hard. Influencing songs: Greatest *******- Damien Rice, ****** Up Kid- Kevin Drew
Caroline Lee Jul 2016
spitting blood nearly dead almost passed out in an open field
freshly wounded bug bit I'm still reeling from your open nails
I wish you could see me now
I wish you could see me now
running from intimacy like you learned to run from your truth
strung out on self reliance a product of my loveless youth
I wish you could see me now
I wish you could see me now
rolling in the wake of the end of my self induced apathy
finally processing the hurt from when you laughed at me
I wish you could see me now
I wish you could see me now

and do you hear me now? Screaming drunk off my anger on my phone in the parking lot
finally unleashing hell on you for everything you're not
and all that you pretended to be
all that you said to me
like some godless lover across the pillow in your bed
all your sentiments sounded so pretty coming from the hole in your head
well you never followed up
so let me follow through
left hook to your pastel pride
and a right hook to all I thought was true
Your love isn't perfect it's bruised
Your grace isn't saving it's used
as you used me to use him to break back through
here's to you

wiped out in the backseat crying like I thought it'd never end
bruising restless and breaking I know now you're not my friend
I wish you could see me now
I wish you could see me now
Brusing my fists and biding my time finally awake
I realized in your hands I had had all I could take
I wish you could see me now
I wish you could see me now
and if you could you'd see that I'm not happy, but I'm finally my own
you'd find that I am not a queen but I never need a throne
I wish you could see me now
I wish you could see me now

and do you hear me now? Screaming drunk off my anger on the phone in the parking lot
finally unleashing hell on you for everything you're not
and all that you pretended to be
all that you said to me
like some godless lover across the pillow in your bed
all your sentiments sounded so pretty coming from the hole in your head
well you never followed up
so let me follow through
left hook to your pastel pride
and a right hook to all I thought was true
Your love isn't perfect it's bruised
Your grace isn't saving it's used
as you used me to use him to break back through
here's to you
Song #3.
Caroline Lee Nov 2015
this isn't so much a poem as it is me just trying to catch my breath
the weeks fly by and my friends are already packing their bags
the great unknown lies just ahead and their exit plans are finalizing
and here i am
weighted and thin
winter already purging any signs of pigment in my skin
I'm just trying to breathe
until I can walk outside of my house without instantly regretting everything
I don't have time to process anything
and certainly not prospective affection
but here you are anyway
thin like I like them
blonde like winter wheat
and I know it doesn't mean anything
but I couldn't sleep the whole night after we first spoke
contemplating all the ways I could get to you
cataloging your tweets and analyzing the time it took for you to speak
where you've been all these years and why we never knew each other sooner
I do this all the time
chase your imagery on my bike
stay up late and try to find you in bits of the city
and this isn't so much a love sonnet as it is just another waste of space
unattainable and shimmering and new
tinted golden and blue
god I want you now but I always do
and everything is changing but I still feel the same as I did when I first started writing this
so don't look for resolution
don't look for some cosmic statement about how this is how we were meant to be
or some pretty sentiment of unrequited love
because
this isn't so much a poem
as it is me just trying to catch my breath
I'm just trying to be
Caroline Lee May 2016
And everything inside me is connected
From the isolation to the need to be in constant contact with everyone I've ever loved or seen
And I don't know what all this change means
All I know is that something in me is different than it ever was before and the rate at which the change comes is staggering and I am drowning trying to understand these new tides within me
From that still small place i learned to find peace in on those endless drives home
To that raging waring firestorm brewing in the base of my ribs threatening to consume everything and everyone I once called good but have since fallen from my hopeful hands

And I can't be by myself
But I can't be with my old friends either
I can't see inside myself
But neither can anyone else

And all I am gets wrapped up into some great swirling question that hovers over me as I sleep
calling forth the dreams I pushed so far down inside of myself that I mistook them for muscle mass or grey matter
And they rise up one by one and take my tired form between their teeth and remind me of why I buried them in the first place
Every failure or failing of my systems systematic switch screen horror stories of the terrible creature I once was
And I don't make much sense anymore
But I don't know if I even want to try to understand
Disconnect of fact or fiction I am a swirling contradiction stuck in static addictions fighting each new wave of self in fear and trembling
and in fear and trembling I reach with timid hands to grasp the veil about the face of my spirit
Calling out the life in me and raising up the dead
So that I may see what it is that is truly taking place within my head.
I'm not the same
Caroline Lee May 2016
the church pew thrasher
I'm stuck somewhere between what they say and what they do
communion cups and inner church affairs
painted faces and sanctified stairs
and though I once was blind I now can never unsee
this place has been a heaven for the rivers of hell that abides in in me
and I crossed all of my fingers
knocked my white knuckles on those pews of holy wood
but I found all was lost that kept me young, kind, and good
I learned quick that things never turn out just like they should
and still I cling to hands raised and a few honest bars
the musing of the man on the microphone and my quiet life on mars
If there were any walls they met my fists
if there were any rough edges they all met my wrists
drunk on the blood of my saviors fallen from grace
unable to understand but still a need to see the savior's face
there is no other explanation
there is no other reason

and you,
you couldn't practice what you preach
you,
you couldn't seek what you couldn't reach
you told me to wait while you went on a head
you didn't die to yourself because you were already dead
I should have known
I should have known I should have known
but still I press on in spite of the hell I was shown
still I reach out for the hem of the throne
still
still.

and I'll never understand how much death I lived through
in a place that boasted life for the pure, holy and true
milk and honey met blood and abomination
innocent eyes and tiny hands lead to the greatest devastation
the betrayal of trust
the bread and the cup tarnished with rust
I'll never understand
but still I reach for the Hand

If there were any walls they met my fists
if there were any rough edges they all met my wrists
drunk on the blood of my saviors fallen from grace
unable to understand but still a want to see the savior's face
there is no other explanation
there is no other reason

and you,
you couldn't practice what you preach
you,
you couldn't seek what you couldn't reach
you told me to wait while you went on a head
you didn't die to yourself because you were already dead
I should have known
I should have known I should have known
but still I press on in spite of the hell I was shown
still I reach out for the hem of the throne
still
still.

So I sing to the kid in me that never grew up
the once who's still tripping under the weight of that cup
be still
be still
be still
it was never his will
be still
be still
be still
it isn't your fault, it isn't your crime
don't let it consume you
don't let it poison your mind
just
be still

and you,
you couldn't practice what you preach
you,
you couldn't seek what you couldn't reach
you told me to wait while you went on a head
you didn't die to yourself because you were already dead
I should have known
I should have known I should have known
but still I press on in spite of the hell I was shown
still I reach out for the hem of the throne
still
still.
Rough draft of a song I wrote this morning. I feel like it's taken a life time to work up the courage to let myself write about this but I finally am. If you're heart was broken by role models in places that were supposed to be good and true, you are not alone. It isn't your fault for trusting. It isn't your fault for wanting something to be good.
Caroline Lee May 2016
And as existential doubt sets in,
I know that I couldn't want you
But I couldn't help the rush of rejection
And so I fell
A thousand times
Screaming drunk filthy
I swear you were the one
Until I sit alone with myself and I know what lies within
But I don't know what lies beyond
And my hollow eyes find yours across the church
You in your white dress or suit or whatever nightmare you picked out
Plastered perfection
I was not the one for you
Because currently eternity has been looking more and more like a graduation ceremony
And I watch as everyone I've ever loved or loathed makes their way across the stage as I am seated in the back
And it doesn't really sting
Until the curtain falls
And I hear congratulations
With a mouth full of hell and a head filled with wine I stumble out into the crowd
And I spill myself all over your gown
Church or school auditorium it's all the same now
It's all the same now
Let the curtain fall on this too as I say congratulations
Congratulations
Congratulations
I still feel the same.
Angsty
Caroline Lee Dec 2015
I was not built to contain affection
Burning blue in my viens
Late night ambition of being the one you think of in the early morning glow
Chasing your sleeved arms through my dreams
Warm
Uninhibited by nausea or fear
Falling free under the influence of fragile beginnings liberated by a fearless tongue I was not built to contain affection
Churning ocean of my stomach and trembling hands
The waves crash I'm maybe three steps away from collapse as I careen into you
This captivation of you
The way you breathe etched in to the margins of my wrists
The wordless refrain hangs hollow in my head: EYE CONTACT CASUAL CONNECTION EXPOSE YOUR WRISTS
I'm lost in the wonder of it all
I was not built for this
I was built to capture and release the swell of this ocean
I was made to fit into the small of your hand rather than hide in my own
I was not built to contain the multitudes of moments I needed to cross the gap between your skin and my own
I was not built to contain affection
Ugh
Caroline Lee Mar 2016
The feeling sings pleasent discourse between the lengths of my young ribs
Swelling and rising like the tides of the fear I had long forgotten since the blunders my youth
The need
The want
The longing to not be left lonely again.
And I'm spiraling in the wave of the aftermath of your touch
Running scared in the ivory forest hidden under layers of skin in the base of my chest
Screaming with the choirs of my blood that this will not do
This is never enough
This is all that rings out in the cathedral in me
As all I am lifts my hands to the light
And falls to the floor in fear and wonder at the weight of it all
The breath in your being
The swing in your step
All illuminates the war in me
The fight in my own body
Between instinct and reason
Between love and lust
Within this bag of blood there is no trust
And though my wings are clipped I will still fight to fly from this
From this inner turmoil over your teeth
I wanted them and I needed them but now I can barely see
Externally stable but internally battling a boiling sea:
This fear of you and this fear of me.
The feeling wages on.
Caroline Lee Mar 2016
We dont wear pearls anymore
We don't frequent the same places or walk in the same circles
We don't
And I am letting my hair grow like the ivy on the walls of my childhood home
And you burned that blue spotted dress that you've finally out grown
There is no crime in this tenderness
This too, will change in time
But these days time is taking all of me
These days I write of my sisters as lovers sent out to sea
The darkness and the waves shroud their faces in the growing divide
I lean into this
Over cups of coffee and matching lips I talk to you like I don't still feel the weight of the ever approaching after
Because now
Feels safe
Because now
Is easy
Black and red and faded blue
I know you've got somewhere to be and I do too
But I don't want to leave because I don't know what comes after this
I don't
And there is no crime in that
Imperfect holy bond of the shared years in some sort of purgatory
We grow
And we rise again
Only to stumble back to each other when heartbreak comes knocking again
We grow
And we rise again
Only to find that we don't wear pearls anymore
We don't wear pearls anymore
We don't wear pearls
We don't
But we remember that we once did.
It made me love more. For C.
Caroline Lee Nov 2015
You can't survive on energy drinks and all nighters alone,
You need someone to love you too.
Be safe. Be well. Be kind.
Caroline Lee Dec 2015
I don't write about you anymore
 At least not like I used to.
I used to feel you through your veins
Used to know you as ingrained in the fabric of the earth
All saltwater and spit like the love you always wanted
Like the love you set on your brow
But I don't write about you anymore except when I'm trashed at three am
Sick of all your talk and the way you put on that shadow when you're begging to be seen
And I do.
I watch you and your perfect teeth talk **** across the room
You say you're happy when you're drunk but I know it isn't true
You're just happy to be apart of something that feels bigger than your skin
Petrified by infinity you don't let your finite nature sink in
You are a biproduct of your generation.
Pastel perfection and ****
Everyone's dream girl
Until you're alone with yourself
And I don't know which is sadder
the way you laugh just a little too loud when the joke wasn't that funny and wasn't directed at you
or the fact that I've been sitting on the floor for an hour and a half and the closest I can come to explaining how I feel is "*******
 you never knew me
and you never wanted to"
And it's all I can do to just be near to you at this point
Listen to your hot breath fill the room with bravado and your parents beliefs
You said that people should do whatever they want as long as they're happy
And then turned back around and voiced how concerned you were about your brother's new habits
Just as long as no one judges you or your drunk Snapchat stories you post with your new friends who you'll be tired of in 3 months time
Everything is temporary but nothing seems to stay constant with you
And sometimes I think about how I used you write about you
Your wide eyes and moon shaped face
Heart of the ocean I was reeling in the high tide but now I'm stuck on land again
And even if it seems strange I don't want to go back
Back to when I used to write this way
Back when I was interesting enough for you
I want to sit on the floor in front of you
Hear the words on your tongue
Watch the ivory of your teeth meet your forced smile
I want to be here right now and drink in every ******* drop of your apathy
So I can remind myself who Ill never be
And watch you disopate and collapse
So yeah
I don't write about you anymore
At least not in that way.
This is never going to be an easy thing to write about.
Caroline Lee Sep 2016
Pocket full of Marlboros I don't know when you started smoking
But I do know
That you still know me
Here on this darkened street corner
You still see me
And it scares me
That I could have pressed so much of myself into your hands
And that you didn't let it go
Even though the back of your hand is all I know
And I know that you know me
But is that enough to bring us back to the people we used to be?
On that sacred hill or in your old house in the city
Apathy isn't pretty
But I'd like to try it on for size
Somewhere inside of me in the darkness cries for all that we once were
That smoke doesn't hide you it just blurs the sadness in your eyes
The weight in your sighs.
(I'm not angry anymore, I'm heart broken)
Caroline Lee Jun 2016
Existential doubt is cool or whatever but I know I'm not the first to freak out about breath
I know I'm not the first one to even wonder what the hell is death
I don't have to be the first
I just want to be the last thing on your mind
They say you've gotta learn to loose and to bind
And it's easy to bounce around these thoughts alone in my room
But every time I attempt to let someone in its always too soon
And I could write about the shape of existence or the tension of time and space
But I'm not getting any younger and I'm a too frightened to let any time go to waste
And I'm not sure what's left for me in this little town but I'm sure I'll figure it out in time
I'm not sure who I am anymore but I am doing my best to be fine
And I wonder where I'm going to be when I see you again
If I'll be stronger and wiser or if I'll have met my end
And even now I still think about the days spent on the edge of your knife
The nights alone the mornings crying the unwilling and unrelenting life
Falling leaves graveyard scenes I lost my mind on my 18th birthday
Confused and crying in the backseat I can still taste what I couldn't say
you never wanted me anyway
And Existential doubt is cool or something but I know I'm not the first to freak out about the need for breath
I know I'm not the first one to even wonder what the hell is death
I don't have to be the first
I just want to be the last thing on your mind
The last thing you see before you go blind
I know you'll follow me down just the same.
I just want a chance to look at you and sing what I never had a chance to say:
I never asked for you anyway.
Caroline Lee Nov 2015
even when I'm chasing someone else
I'm still trying to get to you.
You'd think eighteen years would be enough to shake this.
whatever.
I'll still see you in my sleep.
Words are hard.
Caroline Lee Feb 2016
I don't know how
To tell you why
The days move slow
And so do I
Drawn out in your parlor
I am drunk off a memory
I am drink off the thought of putting my fist straight through your head
I can't forget any word of what you said
Honest open I showed you my world and you promised
You promised
But I'm the one you wanted to fill the void no I'm not the one you needed
I was your toy
And the date is set
The bed is made
Your heart is set
And I shouldn't have stayed this long
I'm just too busy picturing a 1000 forms of revenge
While you're too busy talking about the lines of your new dress
Spinning twirling the focus of the party
You talk over me and I sit complacently ready to tear you apart
You took root in my heart and walked away time after time after time
But the difference is that I'm big enough to recognize what fault is mine
So I'm seasick listening to the harrowing details of your relationship with god
All your devoted disciples sit at your feet so isn't it odd that
My fingernails are digging into the inside of my palms
Isnt it strange that
I'm acting like something is wrong
But as you continue to spit **** to all our mutual friends at somebody else's birthday party
I've decided that I will let you have no part of me
And so it's 2am and I'm coming clean in your doorway
I'm a mess of track marks and contraditctions but all I can say is
You're not my fix
No you're not my fix anymore
You're not my fix
I'm not your girl anymore
The date is set but I'm not coming around
No I'm not coming around anymore.
Pt. 2 of December 13th 3am
Caroline Lee Apr 2016
And there's breath in everything
From champagne glasses to the long ride home
Flying down some golden highway singing of all that is lost only to find that my hands are far from empty
And I am fully feeling again
Scraping the tapestry of the night with my bare hands through the open window
Skin tinted gold
Soul whit hot accentuated by street lights and lack of sleep
And it's over.
It's over and done
It's a short dash to that finish line and I can taste the blood in my mouth
Finally reconciled with the fire within me I am only just beginning
I am only just getting started
So before I finish
Let me just set to flame every lie I ever let under my skin
Let me purge my body of every misconception or deception I took into my ribs with quiet reserve and called my own
I may be young but I've grown since then
And I won't pretend to be any less than myself  
I won't pretend to be the quiet shell of a girl who couldnt take her eyes off the ground or raise her head to stand up straight
That girl is dead
She died,
Not peacefully
But in a forrest fire
A fire that ravaged the wilderness inside of her and lay her bones bare on the blackened earth.
So if you're looking for all that she was,
You won't find her here.
You'll only find the fire that tore her apart
And the breath,
The same breath that binds everything together,
Stitched safely in between her ribs.
Things are different
Caroline Lee Feb 2016
We sit up late and talk **** and glass box confessionals
Of fallen men and angels and the space between our hands
And though we spit different brands of fire,
we still connect in between the flames,
In between our overgrown youth and the cracks in the fault lines of our teeth
Between our separate worlds we meet open and honest in your attic and seek to touch the places we previously could not  reach alone
And I am breathless in return
And you, fire eyed girl, speak in sonnets to the dark
You take the circles around your eyes and string them into free verse
Spilling free from the patterns in your blood
You fight within to take hold of the love that is all around you
Because it lives all around you
Love follows you like a dog nipping at your heels
Chasing you into the depths of your being where it fights you up in arms at the immensity and grandeur of it all
Love fights for you
And you'll let it win
And so we sit and talk up the last four years of hell like it was nothing
Though we both know it meant everything just the same
And on the drive home I'm overwhelmed by the lights
Overcome at the light within you
Tangled beautiful girl
I was called fire eyed too but yours is a different sort of flame
A different brand of light
And it burns bright in my memory on the way home.
To a friend.
Caroline Lee Jul 2016
I can feel you laughing down my neck just like it was yesterday
I can feel those beige walls pressing in
Slow dancing on an open grave
Twisting the knife into my skin
           This isn't self harm this is processing
           This isn't nostalgia this is letting go.
Winter air wrapped in red so many layers I almost couldn't hear what you said
All draped in ice and grace  
The world isn't as small and snug as it used to be
The world is too near and is not gentle with me
I remember
The way it felt when you crossed the room
And I remember
How it felt to leave too soon
I am not my brothers keeper
And you are not the boy I thought I knew
But winter rises ominous and waking before me
and my hands are already turning blue
I'll hold you if I want to.
Revisiting old feelings with an old album tonight.
Caroline Lee Jun 2016
I am here (at a party I don't like)
I am there (at the scene of the accident holding my own hand)
It doesnt matter what they say it will never feel like home
It doesn't matter what they say they won't stay
It doesn't matter how you feel you'll be over it in the next few years
Caroline Lee Dec 2015
Flickering
The future reads like an unfinished novel
Promising
Yet alluding still
I wanted to press myself within you but I can't seem to hold still
70 degrees in December
Tornado watch over the city
While the true storm brews within me
Nothing seems clear these days
What has been
What has yet to be
And the real mystery is what's inside and all around me
Shimmering nerves
Late night stare
You say you hate losing sleep but you stayed up just to talk to me
Maybe so I'll meet you in sleep like you meet me in mine
And I can't get the idea of your hands out of my head
Tentative yet reverent tracing the edges of my tender form
Warm to your touch
I am warm to your touch and it isn't much but
I can't stop writing your name
Trying to catch your curiousity through the mutual language of our entanglement
The constant question: affection
The weight of your eyes from across the room
or from across the concept of distance  manifested through the digital age
We're both romantics anyway
So we go as moths drawn to the flame
The light from another room
The candle left lit for a lover or child
The future
Flickering but promising
Uncertain as a tornado in the midst of winter
The future comes in waves.
Still writing about the same thing
Caroline Lee Dec 2015
We are biproducts of the same dust we were made of when we first began to exist
All the tiny mechanisms firing inside of us sending flashes of light contrasting with motor oil and ****
And I wonder where you are
cutting in red from the despondant blue cascading and coexisting with the atmosphere surrounging you
and as you light up you tell me that it's true
that even though I may feel it I don't need you
But we both know that I do
So we're out smoking in the backyard
Blunt hanging from your mouth like the icon that you are 
Sinewy and strong
But your own breath chases itself away from you and the feeling isn't far
The feeling that this,
This is all we are: meter and rhyme
And lately I've become increasingly aware of the pale in my skin
The ever present blush the need and fear to let the light in
The way that the clouds align with your eyes but I still get burned
You're dripping ash on me laughing you tell me lesson learned
You cant ever hold what you earned
So you hold me instead
And it's quiet lines chasing cars down the street
All the boulevards align with your ease and my crooked teeth
You tell me to love them anyway
You tell me what to do even if you don't know what to say
And I can't ******* breathe anymore
The garden is closing in
Flashing lights of neon green corresponding with red and blue along the arch of your skin
Tear me in two
While I tear into you
It'll all feel fine.
This has been living in me and needed to get out
Caroline Lee Jan 2016
It's gospel isn't it? Your quiet complacency
Out sick in the bathroom but still you seem to laugh at me
Your imperial intent and millennial mind
Only seem to distance you from being anywhere close to 'fine'

You sold out your soul to a bipolar lover you
Swore off your friends and told yourself you'd never need another
You broke my heart there in your damp summer clothes
You said it wasn't personal but i know that I know that I know that

I'm not supposed to suppose anymore
That you might feel better if you just shut that door
You can give him your world but you can't keep me in yours  
So I won't come around if you knock on my door anymore

The summer you met were the coldest months I've known
Ice in your eyes winters breath filled your home
The mess that we made still hangs round my head
Thorny black crown of the words I never said

But now here we sit in a 4x4 bathroom stall
Tell me it's fine that morning will fix it all
Tears in your eyes your hands in your lap
But it won't get better if you keep running back

But I'm not supposed to suppose anymore
So you'll keep on going back to his door
You can give him your world but you can't keep me in yours
So I won't answer when you come to my door
Another rough song I'm working on.
Caroline Lee Apr 2016
And I pray that the only satin in my coffin
is the green the grass that creeps softly over manicured lawns and hidden wilderness alike
A monument for every day I've walked barefoot and filled with wonder at all that god's green earth encompasses
alive and trembling I have fallen in love with every breath of life from the tangles of ivy to the solitary stars
I move
along with all the horrors and beauties of this life
I breathe
with every fiber of my being
if only to grasp the weight of existence as felt in the simple wonders of this never ending now
so that even when my body protests and my soul lays fallow and barren within my aging vessel I might find peace in the fact that
with every breath I take
I add to the cosmic dance of creation
that I move too with the ancient patterns of the sun
with the birth and death of each coming day I lift my eyes to see all that can be within this endless circle of being
I lift my eyes to see the light
And when my time comes
I will cry up and over and I will breathe my last breath with everything that sings around me
and I will return to the void that I was born from
from dust and light and breath of another
I will return to the start and finish of it all
a place beyond time
a place beyond any need to be
and I finally
simply and purely
just
be.
and so I pray that on that day when my soul leaves my body that the only satin in my coffin is the grass I lay face down in on those rare, tender days when the weight and wonder of it all set in
and I recognized the beauty and terror of it all
we are all just swimming in it
we are all just rolling with the tides
and we must learn to breathe with it
into our up and overs for lifetimes to come.
We're all just swimming in it.
Caroline Lee May 2016
And still I wonder at the feet of some strange Phantom Other
of all the crucifixes and hymnals I misplaced over all the years
Hands unknowingly raised I found myself in the midst of an embrace I was so firmly braced against
I set myself also against you
But is it odd that I see it hovering over you too?
I hope you feel it too.
And all the mistakes I made I keep quiet in the back of my pocket
To use as reasoning against all the ways I could ever let someone close again
When all I want is for someone to burst in and tell me I was worth it all in the end
Self loathing embedded into me like some cultural progression of an unholy procession of higher self
But all I ever wanted was to be one with myself
Instead of hating my own skin
And still the holy ghost hangs over it all quietly watching and projecting pictures of all the people I'd come to love
Happy in their holy havens safe from everything I feared
Everything I feared that had been hiding in my skin
And the countless Sunday mornings I spent observing others fall out seem so distant now when I'm finding church in my bathroom alone
Safe from sanity safe from my darker self
In this is the only purity I will know
May I never be as the winter snow
And it's taken years for me to write in honesty of all the friends I've lost and of my personal heroes who have fallen
But it will take me many more to portray my 40 days of wandering in the house of the lord
Because 40 became 60 and 60 stretches on until I find my footing again
And know the Phantom Other as friend
And learn to let the light fully in
Because I know that you know that I am not too far gone
I'm just learning to move on.
'I am in pursuit of all I can undo'
Caroline Lee Jun 2016
Late days weighted heads and moonlight
crossed fingers filthy feet and new wine
I'm in love with every part of this
talk it up tell me you got a lot to say
walk me home unsteady from the heavy day
You've got me in right your prize fighter fist
Old hymns bug bites and middle school
play it off while you fail to keep your cool
I don't know what to say
God's grass I'm reborn into a family
baptized in longing when you look at me
We're all formed from the same unholy clay

and I stay up and bleach away the excess emotion
stomach sick from this heady new ocean
of wanting your fingers on my spine
I sleep late and let the dust collect
a new mystery special, a new set of dots to connect
the weight of wanting to call you 'mine'
but all I say when you ask
is 'thanks for asking I slept fine'

Early days light linen and black coffee
bedheaded and bruisin you caught me
right at the base of my chest
jeff gordon god and all his parlor tricks
morning breath bravado I'm already sick
trying to keep these feelings in check
You're five hundred and seventeen miles away
and I'm seven months from finding the right words to say
that I'm happier in the cracks of your teeth
Common senses debates time and distance
enamored by your subtleties and fighter's stance
you almost negate my unbelief

and I stay up and bleach away the excess emotion
stomach sick from this heady new ocean
of wanting your fingers on my spine
I sleep late and let the dust collect
a new mystery special, a new set of dots to connect
the weight of wanting to call you 'mine'
but all I say when you ask
is 'thanks for asking I slept fine'
A song I'm working on.  Feelings ****.
Caroline Lee Feb 2016
Back on the loop past my old flame's house again
I sleep in and I show up late because I can't get you off my mind
Between failing friendships and endless gap years I feel like there isn't much of my heart left
But I'm still here
And I cry but I don't talk about it anymore. The people I love are a text message and 45 short miles away
But I'm too scared to cross the distance
Emotional or physical I'm too ******* scared to even ask for prayer
Singing out hymns to an estranged father imortalized in memories from last year and in the gruesome images depicted in stained glass windows,

Hallowed be this place in me.
Hallowed be the space in between my ribs.

 and my brother is a gospel singer to a basement full of people who are just as scared as I am
And He rides the crowd like Jesus walked on water
He lifts his hands caught in the same spirit that torments the angels and demons alike
And maybe god hears him screaming through the walls like I do
Maybe god cries too
But if he does he does a good job hiding it
And my parents are on the continent that I turned my back on a year ago.
I traded family dinners for a decomposing raft and tried my luck at the sea
Only crossing the water to drink wine and share the communion of post apocalyptic dreaming or political warfare we are so horrified and mesmerized by
The fellowship of the modern day saints,

Hallowed be this place in me.
Hallowed be the hole in my head.

Icehead baby don't you come to close to me
I'm friged baby I'm too far gone to see
And I've been dreaming about summer while I've been reading up on life in Antarctica
Cold tundras and odd communities I could work in maintanince for the price of living
Meanwhile I'm surviving my own tundra the endless night never gives way to sun for seasons on end
And my friends grow wings and fly into the sun
 a thousand variations of Icarus they're going to be dead and gone on while I'm still landlocked in concept
Or in orbit far in space
Wherever I am, I am distant
Living on the memories from years past
So I'm driving the endless loop past an old flame's house again
Connecting the dots between my ideas of dependency space and time
And I'm fine
In love with the seclusion of the towering trees
The security of a prolonged gap year
The warmth of the ice in my head
And as the roots of the divine cover my mouth and bloom in my lungs
I sigh and give into my year of hibernation.

Hallowed be this place in me
Hallowed be the expanse of this space.
Pessimistic yet at peace. I'm taking an extended senior year and I'm not really okay with it but it's alright I guess. Going through some things. Also listen to Icehead by Alex G, it's brilliant and beautiful and everything I need right now.
Caroline Lee Oct 2015
It's supposed to feel this way
sitting quiet riding high
the slow burn
the weight of another's hand on my thigh
it's supposed to feel like this
tracing my forearm along the curve of the earth while the party rages on inside
I'm spinning fast
all orange juice and half smile
caught tripping on my own two feet
and you say that we're the same
white hot like the lines of your teeth
you were always so willing to devour me
copy paste impress
the effort of becoming effortless
it doesn't make any difference
because no matter what you say
I know you know what you're doing
so I hide outside
scrape constellations into my mouth
run ragged down your street in my socks with my closest friends
laughing numb about my aggression and burning bright with white noise
It's supposed to feel this way
picking fights with myself in the half light
tearing my teeth out just past midnight
it's supposed to come in waves
youth
forever in four years of closed doors beige walls
and all those fake friends
will burn out hot and fast like dying stars
you'll slip away into forever and I won't miss you even when I think about the blue days
on the edge of the city catching streetlights in my chest
I won't miss you
just miss what I thought you were before I realized that nothing is forever
and we are not infinite
not even a little bit
not even when you play that song or say that thing that you rebloged at 2am that you thought would make you seem deep or intellectual
we are not infinite
but you were apart of my forever even still
so when I climb out of your windowsill it isn't because I'm trying to look like the kids in the videos
I just need to catch my ******* breath
just need to walk with a couple of people who know me
just need to trace my forearm along the curve of the earth
don't worry about it
you'll burn out soon enough
after all
it's supposed to feel this way.
I'm a little too excited to lose you
Caroline Lee Feb 2016
I spend my days moving slowly along the kitchen floor
Singing softly and sweetly of the love I've never known
And as my song rises to the rafters I pray that one day it might reach you and with long spindling fingers fill the cracks of your body with the feeling you've always known in the center of your soul
Down to that secret place where all knowing grows and I pray that it spirals along your spine and out through your velvet eyes as you cry for the honest days wasted and numb on a drunken night
I pray that you find through the atmosphere my lyrics and melodies and that even when we are miles away you might sing back to me
We may never meet but darling I feel you in the blades of grass that grow from between the ribs of the earth
I feel you in that secret place in my sternum in colors of green and gold
And as the days pass may sunlight touch your skin as it touches mine
Gentle and breaking
So tender it makes you cry
I pray that that sun will come and tear you apart
so that you may be free of your walls
So that your body is no longer night
So that we may both learn to blossom in whatever season may come
Through fire and through seawater
May the feeling refine us
And bind us
In the spirit that surpasses all new and old
So brother please hear this song through the cracks of your wall
Lover please come down off the ledge and find that we are still all that we said we were when we were swollen and small
That we are all that we hoped we'd be when we were naked and filthy in the garden alone
Our father was angry but we did not yet know ourselves and we did not yet know the mess to be made
We are messes made by the good intent of apathetic friends
But darling as I move in the doorway I can promise that this feeling never ends
I don't know you yet but I will find you and feel you through the wind in the trees
With the voice of the spirit rolling freely through me
Can't you see?
As I'm singing to you
Can't you feel?
After the damage is done and they say there is nothing left to do
I will come rolling and ringing through you
And the divide will be no more
Alone together at last
clean on the kitchen floor.

This is the holiest form of love I will ever know.
To JM
Caroline Lee Jun 2016
And I walked through the fire and watched everything I held so tight burn
Warm hearts consumed by flame and that's how I learned
That the fire's been inside of me all along
That the fight has been what's been keeping me strong
Don't tell me I'm wrong
I know
I know
I know I'm right
And you do too.
And what did you expect from me? To quietly mold into the shape you liked best
To forfeit my destiny and roll over and sit back like the rest
I am not like those other girls before
I am not going to give myself up anymore
Not going to sit back shut up watch you dictate my place
I don't know what you wanted but I'm not just another pretty face
And it may not seem like some new reveltation but I am not some gentle flame
I am not some timid child waiting for you desperately to call my name
I don't wait for anything or anyone anymore
Is my spirit still gentle? Is my love still the same?
Is the change in me frightening? because I'm not the same
I'm not the same
I'm not the same
Let the flames wrap around my limbs and take you far away from me
Let fire consume all impurities and old scars until I am free
And I am free
Free
Free to be
Free from you and free from the fear of me
I was once blind but now I see,
I am who I need to be.
I'm trying to write the songs and poems I need to sing and read over myself.
Caroline Lee Jan 2016
We get along with each other so well in all our clothes
Why **** this thing up by taking them off?
Caroline Lee Jun 2016
Quiet nights in my bed and family dinners all drive me deeper into myself
I spend my the majority of my time alone lost in Facebook memoirs and tributes to friends that never lasted through the storm
I am not sick in my heart I am trying to be well again
Trying to meet your gaze from across the room
To be able to accept your half assed companionship like any other functioning human who can summon up a smile to cover up the sparking of their discontent
But I can't hide it from you
And you know it as I watch you from across the room
That I am unwell with no intention of wishing you well
I gave that up last week
And this poem wasn't supposed to be about you but you are as much apart of me as the pen in my hand
A medium of my discontent
The serpent in my head
This wasn't meant to offend just meant to voice what I never said to you on that hill back in the depth of spring
And I can see it now
I can watch myself drunk breaking the glass against the wall on your wedding day
Cursing your name on the stage
It's a rocky road I'm on but lately I've been feeling my age
And 18 isn't kind
And even though we once breathed in tandem I'm not ashamed to tell you that I want everything you've got
Just to burn it before your eyes
Just to make up for all the white lies we've both said in common pleasantries
It isn't you it's me
Echos through the back of my mind
I am not fine
And you know it
The disaster in the cornor of the room aiming slowly gunning for you
What a joy it is to be the town drunk on your graduation day
You can leave this town but you're still bound to your age
And it isn't pretty but I've begun to embrace the abomination that I am
The screaming mess of crooked teeth no one can **** it up like I can
I don't need you
Except to write about when the quiet nights and family dinners threaten to strangle me
I am through with quiet complacency
Through with the regret breeding in me
In this there is no peace
In this I exist inside of me
Trapped within my skin
At least I'll never let you in.
Found this old guy and I figured Id post it. It's pretty angry and I can't say I can identify with it but I still like it
Caroline Lee Jan 2016
Dry heave quietly in the back room it feels like I've been coughing up blood for years
Warm house cold friends the noise is distant
Nothing lines up like it should and I can't find the pen in my own hand but I'm writing
But I'm surviving
I am learning how to live in the midst of my own hell
Fragmented relationships spit venom over cups of coffee collapse and repeat
Self defense class on Saturday and I didn't sleep for two days
Paranoid about anyone who could be out to hurt me including myself
And I do
Put myself down in my own head alone
Quiet chiding that I didn't have to let go of the love I used to know
I am a delicate soldier sitting out on the roof till the morning
Trying to get a feel for the light
Trying to get back somewhere in time when my own skin wasn't the battlefield
And my stronghold was my mind
This isn't easy but it's fine
I'm not yours and I'm not mine
Even if it doesn't make sense
(Which it never does)
I'm a walking paradox
Confliction even in the cracks of my skin
The optimistic realist.
The tired kid in the back of the room shaking with fear and wonder at the weight of the world.
What a beautiful thing to live
What a beautiful thing to be
Even when it comes in waves in the bathroom I am learning to hold it right and save
Every ******* bit of life around me
Take the bitter with the sweet and everything in between
I'm just in between the end and beginning
And I'm doing just fine.
Early am thoughts
Caroline Lee Feb 2016
The way you carry yourself is an art
Minimal clean and full of bravado
And as we walk through department store hell
I think I'm beginning to see you past first impression nausea
Past the want of my own skin
Last weekend came as fresh snow red wine and attitude
And though the roads were slick I couldn't keep my mind off of you
Grey green boy
Your scent lingers still even if you only stayed for an hour
I can feel you laughing in my ear light and warm
You quote song lyrics and smirk while the pastor drones on
I can feel you
even through the wall between our seats
I can feel you
And I wonder if you feel me too or if it's just another sort of sickness that comes with an overly romantic mind and a restless eye
Grey green boy I wanted you before you were mine
That is to say,
If you're ever mine
So for now you are art and I observe you
Through the museums of the millennial
Windows left open late at night
Longing is a mess.
Thoughts I will no doubt delete by next week
Caroline Lee Jan 2016
Real love is in the hazy curve of the earth lined in cities and streetlights
In men and monsters alike
In mountains and valleys real love finds you and forces its way into your lungs pushes out through your fingers and onto the page from your pen
Real love is in the depth of the action of feeling itself
Not in some petty lust or the need to be touched
The quiet yet resounding sentiment that if you don't find "the one"
Then you will be blindsided forever by the harsh hands of a thousand one night stands
You will be left empty in the kitchen sink
This I see and hear in the bodies all around me
And I've been ****** over as well as the next kid
Wide eyed and innocent young thing force fed brine and ****
I was in love with everyone and every thing that ever came near me
Blinded into submission in the ignorance of my youth
And I was taught that love was the feeling you felt when someone took you home or took you in
That love was an idea long lost in fairy tales and **** posts from your drunken ex at three am
And I got good at being let down time and time again by empty words or hushed sentiments spoken too hastely on the hardwood floor
I got good at learning to document a fleeting thought or moment just to try to keep some light in me so I didn't drown in the endless sea of my nights alone
And yeah the bottom of an empty bathtub became a second home but I have discovered that real love is as near as the grass under my feet
The cracks in the street the ice in my drink
There is a freedom and a weight in the weight of it all
so the feeling that they try to destroy when we're small finds a way
Through the pigment in our eyes to the countless times we are let down or let others down
The earth resounds that real love
Is in everything
And that you
Are apart of it all
And one day it's all gonna break
Inspired by broken social scene. You are loved. You are apart. You are known.
Caroline Lee Mar 2016
Straddling white lines along the highway into town
I don't know what you're thinking about and I don't know where you are
But I know that some part of you waits silently for me
As I wait for you
And they talk of little soul mates like we've already met and I can't help thinking that I don't even know myself yet
Let alone know how to let someone know me
Leave me alone so I can just be.
I am a lantern just collecting light
I am a moth flying blindly in the night
I am a month or two left of routine
I am the face you've never seen
I am hungry for you
And I wait.
there's someone out there
Caroline Lee Feb 2016
I can almost taste you in the back of my throat
Like it or not you are in every word that I wrote.
And. I'm tangled up inbetween the place of wanting you and wanting the best for myself
But I don't know what's best for myself
Just do what's best for yourself
To hell with my mental health
So it's late nights early mornings deflecting warnings with half assed poetry
Most people I know trigger me in some sense of the word
But in case you haven't heard
They're saying I've lost my mind trying to find the love I used to know in myself
back when I knew myself skinny *** kid in the denim shirt
Beaming back at you before I got hurt
back before I learned that the parts that you can't see are the ones that teach you to be
The ideas that we could be inside of reality without fully hating ourselves
And me I just wanted to be something more than the walls I was born into
More than the **** I got into with the kids who turned me into the monster I have become
It's the people we know not the places we're from that define us
And I'm on that ultra light beam
Out singing with the whole ******* team about another man's god dream
The scheme that gleamed in their eyes so mean just trying to find they're own way
And what I'm trying to say is that I want you but I know that it could take me down
And I'm not about to drown in another wasted year
In another ocean of my own tears
This isn't coming out of fears it's coming from the place in me that knows that I was made for more
That I am more than another girl's page from her diary
That I am more than what the people are saying about me
That I am more than what I intend or intended to be
I was blind but now I see
And this is all of me
Ultra light beam
A god dream
Everything.
So yeah I can almost taste you in the back of my throat
And yeah I'm tangled up in that place but I ain't leaving a note
I'm standing up for me
And aI can almost taste you in the back of my throat
I'm tangled up inbetween the place of wanting you and wanting the best for myself
But I don't know what's best for myself
To hell with my mental health
So it's late nights early mornings deflecting warning signs with poetry
Most things I know trigger me in some sense of the word
But in case you haven't heard
They're saying I've lost my mind trying to find the love I used to know in myself back when I knew myself skinny *** kid in the denim shirt
Beaming back at you laughing before I got hurt back before I learned that the parts that you can't see are the ones that teach you to be
The ideas that we could be inside of reality without fully hating ourselves
And me I just wanted to be something more than the walls I was born into
More than the **** I got into with the kids who turned me into the monster I have become
It's the people we know not the places we're from that define us
And I'm on that ultra light beam
Out singing with the whole ******* team about another man's god dream
The scheme that gleamed in the eyes of the teen just trying to find her way
And what I'm trying to say is that I want you but I know that it could take me down
And I'm not about to drown in another wasted year
In another ocean of my own tears
This isn't coming out of my fears it's coming from the place in me that knows that I was made for more
That I am more than another girl's page from her diary
That I am more than what the people are saying about me
That I am more than what I intend or intended to be
I was blind but now I see
And this is all of me
Ultra light beam
A god dream
Everything.
So yeah I can almost taste you in the back of my throat
And yeah I'm tangled up in that place but I ain't leaving a note
I'm standing up for me
And all I want to be
And all that I want to be
The Life of Pablo truly exceeded all of my expectations. Once again the Kanye album I needed came right on time. Kanye taught me how to write and how to embrace my own personal mess, so please excuse this mess of a poem.
Caroline Lee Jun 2016
Bruised ribs I'm sleepless walking down this dusty road
Lost in thought over my dead weight but I just can't shoulder the load
And I tried to run it over my tight tongue in the bathroom
Singing quiet hymns to consol myself praying to god that now isn't too soon
And I see it in my eyes head on in the mirror
I can hear it in my constant questioning trying to understand why the path isn't clearer
But I'm no nearer to understanding than I am to touching my elbow with my tongue
I'm no closer to letting someone in than to embracing who I've become
And my need to run
And I'd like to see the light behind your bright eyes dancing on my skin
I'd like to risk the burn just to try and let you in
Warm arms and broad smile
Sit down and tell me to stay a while
I think I could pause for you
I think I could stop worrying about what I should do
Just staring into your kind eyes
Trying to figure out why that flame never dies
But here I am thin skined thing trying to protect my arteries
Laying alone broken in bed over how others seem to have responded to me
Like I've been sent out to sea on this twin bed in my sleep
Awakened in waves too caught off guard and timid to make that leap
So I'll sink my tired skeleton into the frame work of this mattress
And try to decompress my heavy head and restless mind
They say if you seek you'll find
And I'd like to find that light that lives behind your eyes inside my own skin
I'd like to risk the bruising and breaking just to try and let you in
Warm arms and broad smile
Sit down and tell me to stay a while
I think I could pause for you
I think I could stop worrying about what I should do
Just staring into your kind eyes
Trying to figure out why that flame never dies
But here I stand, Fire eyed girl that I am
spitting venom declaring I belong to no man
I am not who I used be and it's plain to see when I look at you
And think of all the damage I could do
Hoping that maybe some things aren't too good to be true
So if that's true,
And I'd like to see the light behind your bright eyes dancing on my skin
I'd like to risk the bruising just to try and let you in
Warm arms and broad smile
Sit down and tell me to stay a while
I think I could pause for you
I think I could stop worrying about what I should do
Just staring into your kind eyes
Trying to figure out why that flame never dies.
Wrote this song in 20 mins awake alone in a bunk bed at a camp Im anxious about
Caroline Lee Jan 2016
Quiet light in your old T-shirt
It isn't often that mornings make me this tender,
But here I am.
Constant contradiction of charisma and brine
Hooked on summer nights,
Humidity softens and sweat grounds us in the moment
Dark leaves and drunken hymns- I need the memories to remind myself that there were simple days.
Days when all that mattered was who had the lighter and who would start the first song off
I am braver now
(But that isn't saying much)
I still cower at the gentlest touch
Messes of men beneath my skin oil spills and construction sites all the walls I build to keep myself in
They weren't meant to keep you out,
Just to ensure that I didn't give it all before I was ready
But I don't think I am
Or will ever be for anyone
And are you thinking of me now? Wide eyed child running through the tangled woods
Tender open and naked
Innocence embodied in the humble request that I stay the night
We don't talk about that part of me anymore
We don't talk about those days anymore
We talk about tours and albums and lyrics and time
And it's good
Until it isn't fine
So here I lie in my grandmother's bed wondering where the hell it all went
Innocence
The simplicity of summer
The honesty of my skin
And if it all falls away
I'll figure out how to let quiet light back in.
Not so much about unrequited love but about the girl I used to be.
Caroline Lee Mar 2016
I don't talk about it much anymore but you know you broke my heart
Not because we were in love
Because we weren't
But I loved you anyway
Not romantically speaking but in the way that sisters lie together in the same bed
Or like brothers hold hands when they're small
Innocent
I was innocent and so were you
But things change and I have too
I'm not the same anymore as when you stuck the knife in my back
I'm not the same as the kid who didn't know how to react when you tore into me numb on the cabin floor
No I'm not the same but somehow after all these years you are
And you can't keep hoping that someone is gonna become more than themselves for forever
You can't stay up waiting for the same response you've been waiting for for the past two years
And I've been here for the past two years
Hands folded staring numbly at you and your changing personas
Yeah you can change your hair but you can't change your color
You can't change your heart
So yeah I hang back when you walk in
Yeah I leave early and I show up late
And yeah I've written you over a hundred poems trying to sort out the knife you left in my back
But I know better than to talk about it
I know better than to look you in the eye and expect you to honestly look back
I don't talk about it but you ******* broke my heart
And you didn't even try
To a friend
Caroline Lee May 2016
You tattooed the small of my back every time you took the round about way of saying things
Through your body and through your hands
Calculating our distance and the ways in which we failed our fellow man
Be gentle with yourself
At least be kind to yourself if you can't be to me
Tan lines and sunken eyes
We sit inside the dried up river bed right where the water once ran
dark brown and green
Right where used to swim and play pretend till we could not move our limbs anymore
I told you then I'll tell you now I could never ask for more
Than to be gentle with you
Once more in muddy water
Tripping over stones and catfish
Bruising spines and tender minds
Time be gentle with me
My legs are unsteady and my heart is a bursting ****
Freeing pent up oceans, plant life and messes of men
Time Go easy on me
And you
Walk tender with me
Because you cant help but permeate my body and ink up my soul
In hairline fractures of your brilliance
In jagged cuts of your ignorance
I cannot separate your imprints from me
I cannot clean up these tracks even though I know you'll just leave
I know you're gonna leave
I know you have to leave
But you don't leave me alone
You're everywhere.
Caroline Lee May 2016
And after long six years,
I'm still not sure if there's life on mars.
Maybe a life for someone else,
But not for me.
Highschool is almost over and I'm not even sure what's happened in the last years.
Caroline Lee Oct 2015
Lately I've been thinking about becoming bigger than my body
I've been processing you through **** demos on my phone
Through grey skies and empty bottles
Through blank stares and perpetuated silence
( I used to need a rhythm to write but the white noise in my head seems to work)
I've been turning corners and changing lanes
Doing the dishes and doing my time tangled in empty sheets
And it seems okay
As long as I'm not by myself for too long
Because if I let the white noise in I'll be swimming in black till the weekend
I'll numb myself in neon shades
White hot and weighty
Glimmering image of the silver screen dream
Spent shadowed twisting out into the intersection until I remember that you are not the same as you once were
And I am not the girl you needed
I'm just processing
And working on becoming bigger than my body
More than my bones more than my skin more than my gender more than a character in someone else's life
More than a thin wristed timid thing weighted down by years of neglect and indifference
More than a pair of wide dim eyes
More than myself.
I'm sorry I didn't call you back.
Caroline Lee Jan 2016
Black nights and the sound of you through my bedroom wall
Sing about her so you can see past your own skin
Flaws and fault lines captivate and horrify so you pick apart what you can
Young man trying to balance civilization with the old magic you once felt in your heaven that soon after became my hell
But don't cry for them
In time we all change
In time we all rearrange our feelings and heartbreaks
We all figure out all role models fall
But it broke you
And down you fell into a sea of your own discontent
The winter of 2014
Quiet brilliance never one to avoid a fight
You kick and you scream where you should lie back
And I loved you for it
Millennial abomination that you are
Spit your voice and chase her off your chest
Drink away the excess feeling and burn the rest
Don't you know that what the fire leaves untouched isn't your load to carry
Leave her along the side of the road for someone else to burry and pick up your megaphone and preach your gospel of self reliance on the streets
Born of Walt Whitman you speak of dependancy like a curse
But I know you need the stage to breathe I know you weak shouldered boy better than you know yourself at times
Though I only know you through the wall of your bedroom
I've watched you fight demons and cowards alike
Watched you been bruised and forgotten for years
Disciple of your innocence you were ignorant to the faults of your fellow youths
Pinned them up like prize fighters on your walls
Don't you know I watched it all
And one by one they fell
Unfaithful, thankless wretches and they took the life from you while you washed their feet
And you swore off dependency and trust for years on years and let it all go
And now it comes out soft and sweet through my bedroom wall
Let down and hanging around you sing for every ******* that forced their way in to your chest
It's a wonder you survived the rest
But here we sit after all.
To my brother
Caroline Lee Dec 2015
There is an immensity of life between us
in the cracks of the tar lining the streets of the new and the up and coming
in the cement foundations of  pieces of history torn down to make way for condos
in the luxury of the innocent
in the opulence of the well versed

(I was never brilliant or oblivious but I understood the weight of it still)
and still
there is life here
in the filthy river water we use to cleanse ourselves of modern day idealism
in the pedicured grass of the only wild space left in the city
in the eyes of the people who go unnoticed for years
in the hands of the business men devastating and deciding the price of our humanity
we swarm
we collect
we nest in this hive
we levitate and gravitate towards new heights and new highs
vowing to go up and over up and over until we revert back to the way we once were
nostalgia
a pretty word for dissatisfaction
tearing down walls only to romanticize their restriction ten years later
we build up to break down to reenforce what we already know
but yet there is a beyond
and yet still there is more
still there is life in the existential
still there in the thoughts between sleep and waking
still between the jump and the fall
still
and even still you take your forearm and run it along the curve of the earth surrounding this city
this coal eating monster washed with the dreams of a thousand drunkards looking for some other body to call home
and we call it home
with the austere buildings and mirror images reflecting bricks and soot
reflecting breath and sighs
reflecting life and death
and between it all
there is so much life
yes between us
there is an immensity of life.
Poem for my city and for you. Procrastinating a paper and listening to King Krule. The way he writes kind of destroys me. He creates fullness in minimalism and captures his surroundings perfectly.
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