I kissed a girl with a broken smile;
nothing could come near.
She carved it with a pocket knife;
slit from ear to ear.
And she wears it like her favourite scarf;
it keeps her from the cold.
So I told her its only woven by
her enemies of old.

i told myself,
“a year from now they’ll be choosing you”
but here we are.
another trip around the sun complete.
and once again i’m the odd one out.

when people say,
“you rely on other opinions too much”
do they really understand why?
do they understand how trapped i feel?
how the earth keeps turning,
yet i’m stuck in the same place.

and i can’t go back,
to being stuck there alone.
but you chose someone else again.

he had a brain
not an education
not even high school
it wasn’t uncommon
then for the poor
school doesn’t pay
and someone has to
make money
and as long as you
could work you
could make money
and he could work
and he could learn
how to run machines
so he could find work
and he could learn
how to shoot guns
so he could fight
in wars
and he could
learn how to drink
so he could fight demons
and they never stopped
him from working
so he always got paid
so he could always pay
for his drink
he had a brain
not an education

Mostly, I preach to my self. Talk to myself.
I write what I need to to hear. Self talk,
out loud. So often painting colors
like emotions, spilling out,
water from a dam overrun by storms I cannot name
in the normal scheme of things.

I sit with them, the storms,
longer than more sensible people.
I get wet. Disheveled.
The wind blows me like a scarecrow in July.
I sit with them. Madman in the rain.
But how else do I know if it is a storm
or a shower?