It’s the way he woke up laughing
and she woke up looking for me
And how, because I was there,
no one was afraid

I got out wishing I had died
Like after a car crash
when they make you sleep
to manage the pain

I hear my reasons
right outside the door
I try to feel joy
and it’s there, but in silence

And everything starts to lose meaning
I know I need to be here
I know it doesn’t really matter
An existential threat

I cannot believe it
Do you not think of me all the time?
I have so much love to give
Always so much on my mind

I wish I believed you
I wish you were right
I don’t know how I got here
It feels like I’ve just woken up

I fall asleep laughing
and wake up half asleep
I wake up
I wake up

I used to write songs to god
back when I did not know a lot
or think much about what I want
It was all a lie I told myself
to believe

The amazing grace
missed it’s mark
No one saved my soul,
often gone
It was all a lie
that everyone seemed to believe

I think it requires a type of hope
and an overwhelming need to cope,
which I never could
I believe in ghosts
and electricity;
unwinding and rewiring
Nothing good ever came from the shock

I used to pray for everyone -
anxiously and, often, overdone
The weight never softened,  
always buckling under the worry
Some never need to learn,
they just know its true

I try to give myself grace
I try to hold the space
But I find that when I say
“if it’s not right now,
it’s okay,”
I feel like I’m lying

I want to get it out
without incisions
but I have my doubts
And with all the time
I’ve taken to find,
it feels like
I’m not even trying

I have no superstitions
about the end
But if it all could
just begin again…
I feel more comfort
than I’d like to in believing
that everything will stop happening

If I could find out what I want
and ease the anger at everyone
I hold each knife in my back
like a shield of armor
that leaves me vulnerable
And I find that when I say
“I know everything
will be okay”
it feels like a lie

To end the weight of grief
To have something to believe
To heal the wounded knife
To find out what to find
To have somewhere to belong
To know my favorite song
To garner the strength to try
before the new year’s ending

I love her until she takes herself seriously
We all know she’s a joke to me

I listened to you
so exclusively and intently
I never
want to hear you again

Like a friend,
turned enemy,
turned so much more
in the end

And all the songs
you used to sing
spin out of control
in my head

I used to find it
maddening
until I finally
let it sink in

You only ever
spoke the truth to me
Oh, on that night…
You took me for granted

I still listen for you
at my doorstep
but you will never
step foot again

My friend,
senselessly turned enemy
How poorly you left me
for dead

I loved to hear
you sing -
a precious memory
left in my head

I used to think you
were too good for me
but maybe I was
the better friend

My favorite flower is a ****
But aren’t they all

It always sounds much better in an empty room
where the smell of leather sticks like a perfume
and the deficit of attention drowns the thought of you

Some place where perspective changes the view
of the perpetual puzzle that takes pieces of you,
and they are aged and altered into something new

The room with a sink, floors tiled, and empty walls,
where you wash your face and you dry it off,
now home to nearly broken strings
echoing
with words only important to me

Please don’t look at me,
now I feel naked
And I would hate it
If I never saw you again

It has taken me
somewhere vacant
and I can’t find
my way home

I feel a shade
jaded
when I’m walking
in the storm