I was born on the shore of Lake Erie
Seven pounds in nature's hands
My mother told me never to be caught
With more than I could hold in my two arms

I was gone in the wind
The second I was old enough to walk
I made crowns out of flowers
And dug down to the earth's fire core

I run along the lands
That open up my heart to more
And I change again
Into the iron horse

I can't believe
That they'd cut down all the trees
But they never did belong to me
They never did belong to me

I came after they left the scene
To count the rings of age
Alone for the first time
It was only the trees that ever knew my name

In the wake of morning I am dying,
My child screaming,Happy Birthday, Dad.
I need my fire to stop the crying,
Purse my lips, the last cigarette I had.
She clambers into my smoke-gray walled room,
Innocence is a baby's white smile,
This contagious cancer is my gloom.
I am her murderer, still she would smile.
I often swore I would quit this **** thing,
For my daughter's sake, not my own **** life;
And always failed, this poison is my king.
It is her lungs that goes the smokey knife.
This selfish ****** turns my whole world gray.
Stupid. By my side, my daughter does stay.

I looked at him through a haze of Pall Malls
He held me briefly and fiercely in dirt encrusted finger tips.
When he spoke to me it was whiskyed and dry.
I'd writhe in sheets covered in sweat,
marred by too many bodies (only one of which was mine).
But we laughed that hearty laugh that comes from knowing eyes.
We danced with the weight of flesh and bone.
We held no pretense,
and my eyes stung with the knowledge that we were genuinely ****** up.

She hides in pockets of flesh in my gums
I can taste her in the morning when I spit
at night I can feel her swimming in an ocean of mouthwash
In sleep she oozes onto my pillow
moistening the dusty fabric under my cheek
When shes really playful
she will wiggle herself into my cerebellum
and dance furiously with my dreams
or gently sing lullabies when my heart wont let me sleep
when the world and its filth have commandeered my hope
she is there to brush away the dirt with untarnished hands
she is my religion she is my ******
without her I am sick
a smoldering heat of black matter and fungi
she is antibacterial soap on my soul
Lysol wipes to my tarred lungs
with one whiff I am cleansed of debris
she saturates the oxygen in my blood
she resides in my abdomen
I can feel her in my kidneys.