Behind the noise and glued-on smiles
Hides the pain of one well-known
She knows that if she leads they’ll follow
But with feet dragging; heads hung low

They say they love her-
Their words are hollow
All they whisper is too loud
Their bitter words she’d make them swallow
If she could find their faces in the crowd

Cold the eyes of one well-known
Grow through months of blame and pain
Silent stays the one they’d follow
Soon they all call out her name

They need a path that has been trod,
For their weakness holds them back
Burdened with jealousy, heavy clad
Their anger turns their hearts to black

Hidden stays the one their hollow
Words tore open every day
She holds it in until she shatters
But they never thought that she would break

The game they play is one of whispers,
And jokes and sneers and jives
What they fail to see is that those whispers
Are seen true for not but foolish lies

She stands tall when she’s around them
Though every night tears soak her sheets
She wants to run or hide or hurt them
But to stoop so low, that is defeat

So inside she holds the pain and sorrow
And all the doubts that no one sees
And all the ones who have to follow
Cannot tell that she can’t breath

Buried in the lies and whispers
Is the heart of one well known
Soon all her friends begin to miss her
As she slips away from them-alone

She’s missing now
They couldn’t follow
To the place she’d gone at last
Their bitter words they had swallowed
And they wished they could rewind the past

The girl was scared of puddles
And she was scared of rain
Every time the thunder clapped
She raced back inside again

She was given beautiful umbrellas
And coats of waterproof silk
But still she sat inside
And read on the window sill

As she grew the rain poured harder
And the girl cowered away
She hid behind her mother’s back;
She never ran to play

She was afraid of what the droplets were
So she sat and watched them gather
She still refused to step outside
And so she grew ever sadder

People came along
And people quickly left
They found the girls odd cowardice;
The way she counted every breath

There came a day when it was too late
And the girl was forced outside
She was lost without her silken coats
And with no place that she could hide

The girl was chilled clean through to bone
And her shy life came to an end
In her silken coats she reached the gates
And the golden stairs she did ascend.

In God’s own home she lay down her fears
And she swore that she’d be brave.
For there there are no window sills
And no pouring rain or hate.

Saint Peter smiled and praised her,
The girl who’d been inside,
And Saint Peter whispered truthfully
As he watched the young girl cry:

“Now, girl who’s scared of puddles,
And girl who’s scared of rain,
Did you ever think that when the thunder claps
It doesn’t have to mean your pain?”

“There’s others out there, like you
Who have suffered just as much
Yet they stay strong and they pull through
And they do not lose touch.

“I’ve been here always to protect you,
And that will never change.
So when you’re scared next just think of that,
And stand to face the rain.”

You must learn to love the puddles
And embrace the freezing drops
Dance under the thunderclouds
Until the lightning stops

One day I sat thinking
About how things used to be.
‘bout how everything was fair
And how he still loved me
I remembered hours of laughter
And smiles all around
I remembered nights gone by
Without a single sound.
I remembered the greenest meadows
And fields of flowers bloomed.
I remembered perfect houses
With lawns and bushes groomed.
I remember thrilling races
Through inches of freezing rain
I remember screaming “I WIN!”
And then racing back again.
I remembered hugging my brother,
And telling him goodnight.
I remember his soft giggle,
And him saying with delight.
“It will be like this forever,
Just them and you and me.
We’ll run and play all day.
We’ll be happy, young and free.
Dad will come back soon, don’t miss him! He promised he’ll always be near.
If you ever wonder, momma said that he’s right here.”
He pointed to my little heart and said with a sort of sigh:
“She says that he is in your heart...but I think that’s a lie.”
And so I lost my brother…
‘cause he doesn't know the truth.
He’s become a different person.
A cold-hearted, angry fool.
I never see that smile that used to make my day.
He’s buried it down deep, and hidden it away.
And that day that I remembered, the tears streamed down my face.
And I wished will all my heart,
That we could go back to the memory place.

i'm not a freak a' nature, i'm a force a' nature.
i'm gonna ******* up and i'm gonna ******* down
and maybe ******* sideways if i've got time
and i got all the time in the world.
but i maybe ain't got time for you,
you who thinks that 'cause i got my missing tooth,
my balding head, my hairy chest, my bigger left breast,
and my genitals which don't have names that you'd ever give
ain't things to love but are reason to hate.
… yeah, i ain't got time for you. i got bigger things to do
like change the weather, write the future, have ***,
make art, discover a new world, or become a tornado
and spin away
leaving you with nothing to stand on.

aristotle and plato were convinced that the circle was the heavenliest shape in all of creation. it was eternal. but, see, the ellipse is that much better. the oval is the imperfect circle, the imperfect shape that instead of having one heart has two, the sound of an open mouth as you gasp, the shape of fingerprint bruises.

the earth moves in an ellipse. all of the planets do. as we spin around the sun, you and i are planets. no wonder when i see you from afar, i can't breathe; we're just in space.

you are neptune. you are deep blue and stormy sea clouds that look like sweat and work, but you are mysterious and beautiful and so far away. when you are neptune, i am uranus, being pulled by the way you move.

sometimes i am saturn. i am swollen with the dust and dirt that make up my outsides. when i am saturn, you are jupiter: a friend who is bigger than i am.

we're space stations and metal, too cold to touch until we get hot from the movement of each other. we're satellites and moons and space-time fabric.

aristotle and plato were convinced that the circle was the heavenliest shape in all of creation. i think that they're so wrong. the shape of your hips, your words, your kindness, your taste, your mouth, your body, your creativity, your sweetness all end up tasting like eternity and heaven.

my heart beats in circles sometimes. but, when i look at you, my heart beats like you and i and ovals.

the door to the basement is locked, but you don't remember where the key is. you know it's somewhere hidden, under the floorboards, under the mattress, over the door frame. it's somewhere. as the burning of your heart ignites your desire to go into the basement, you hear a creak coming from the stair. you don't want to feel it there, but you do. you spin and find that you're bleeding. the scars on your hand tell you you've been through this before.

suddenly, you're in the basement. the key is in your stomach and your heart still burns with passion. inside, your nightmares are all sat in concentric circles round and round the devil himself as he dances for you. you wonder about bible quotes and floods and how they got down here, but then they all stare at you with lidless eyes.

you blink first.

when you wake up, you're in bed and you're warm but the key is lodged in your throat and you're watching your parents make love, and you reach out to touch them.

they are no longer making love; they are consuming each other. their mouths close over each other's flesh and lovingly rip. the rips leave holes in skin that fill with blood and the smell is sweet-rotten, but soon they are nothing but lust and love and bones. even the bones have handprints.

so then you're upstairs again and you can't remember the basement but all you know is that the key's gotta be around here somewhere and you must have been crying because what is that lump in your throat?

i want to live in a warm place, in a place like the desert, but with water. so that it's warm at sometimes, and when it's warm, it's very warm. when it's cold, it's freezing. like our bones will freeze to our souls if we don't move them. like the beach in canada, or something. i want to live in a place that's small, in a place that sort of doesn't require much upkeep. like a one-room apartment with a large bed and a desk. i want it to be high up, so that when i smoke i can look out at the water. i want to smoke and drink and be naked and cold and go skinny-dipping so i'm all covered in goose-bumps. i'd write all day, and spend all evening tearing apart every last word that i wrote before. the days would be spent swimming and smoking and drinking. we'd be wild and free and not care about anything at all. then when kids came along, we'd get a small house, and raise really exploratory, artistic children. we'd smoke in the night time, when the kids were asleep, and we'd all have sorta artistic-y type jobs that meant we didn't have to stay put, but could travel whenever we wanted by train. the most striking image to me is wearing something small, but being mostly naked and being cold and smoking and looking out over the water. i want to be able to speak russian, german, italian, and english. i want to wear glasses that fog up in the rain, and i want my skin to taste like smoke and dust and salt and tea. i want to have ***** *** in the summer and sweet *** in the winter. we'd collect coins and scars and burns and kisses. we'd learn how to sail and we'd eat pears whole as we play chess, getting juice on each of the pieces. we'll play video games in the cold with trembling hands.

when i think of you, i think about tracing scars and telling stories of the time when we swallowed fireworks, just to see if we'll both laugh or both cry or both kiss and lick at the wounds that are still there inside our mouths.

when i think of you, i think of stealing moments in the dark when i'll wake up and you will be there and i won't panic any more.

when i think of you, i realize that i'm a sap, and that i wouldn't want to have it any other way because i started as a love poet and i will always be a love poet, and i want to make poetry out of you and i.

when i think of you, i remember waiting and waiting and miles and miles where each one feels like shrapnel in my heart. i'm afraid that when i hand it over to you, to let it sit in your hands, you'll see just how small it is, just how weak. you'll wonder how it even beat, how it even raced at all. i see you taking my heart and kissing it, and it'll take all my strength to keep it beating in your hands. there will be holes where blood leaks, and it'll be messy. but please hold onto it. i want my heart in your hands, and i want you to keep it there. i don't know what i'd do if you thought to give it back.

when i think of you, i think of counting down days.

when i think of you, i think of driving down roads at night, accelerating too fast and feeling like i can't possibly stop giggling or else i'll just disappear. i think of wind and air that bites at my skin and warms my stomach because i wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

when i think of you, i think of the written list of all the places i want to take you, all the things that i want to do with you. in the end, we'll probably do some of those things, but not all at once. we can't do them immediately, because then we won't have a list. we'll have to keep adding, keep writing new things to do, and then we'll both have to keep secret lists, ones that i won't tell you and you won't tell me, and when we do them, we won't tell. for excitement. for more. we'll just keep it all locked up, so we can consult these lists while the other is asleep, or in the shower, or just not right there right then. little lists to keep everything okay.

a lot of the time, thinking about you hurts. because you're far away. because i can't see you, or kiss you, i can only say things over webcam or text or skype but then i think about not. about just… not. and then that hurts even more so i try not to think about that.

**** the distance. **** the time. i'll be seeing you soon. and that's a fact that makes everything better.