take it by the blood
take it through the teeth
take it under chaos
under magic
underneath

you shine the brightest
when no one's watching

except for me
hidden in the trees

I gave myself away
one day
singing about your
light

you were angry for
a little while
but you laughed again
that night

empty pill bottles
broken bones
I'd found you on the
floor

"where are you love?
where are you love?"



still ain't got a clue
who you were looking for

she recalled of her life she
spent
living in the well
time spent counting
bricks
days past breathing
hell

she'll start to climb
every now and again
but she'll always
get caught
wrapped up in the
promises
& lies that she
bought

"lift me up"
she weakly cried
to the king
but he never dared
look down
upon the brittle useless
queen
& her burden-weighted
crown

the winter's past
the sun is
high
& the summer children
sing of all we've
known



I promise one
day
you'll make your mark
& never
dream alone

take a walk in her shoes


impromptu parties
& people you know that
just love you
'cause you're one of the few
that remember how to

a very close game of
beer pong
birthday boy mixing all
the liquor in the
nearly empty bottle of
Jager
but ****, was it
dangerously delicious

you fall in love with anyone
who gives you the
least bit of
attention and you feel
like a siren
trying to draw in
all the men
so very lost at
sea
if only for a friendly
chat

then its closing time
for your schedule
& the next day you enter
into the world of all you call
home sweet home
back at your mother's
all the people you ever loved
minus one
have come to grace you with
a good old-fashioned
get together

the girl who had your back
since grade school
gives you the great gift
of fresh ink on your shoulder
she worried about ******* it up
you worry about how much
that needle's gonna sting
but it doesn't

the men gather upstairs
& we sing classic songs
of drugs
& love and grunge
you almost made the boy
cry with your voice



these days are too few and far
between

come by again sometime
we miss you where you are
& you'll always miss feeling so
alive

she sits in a booth
far back in some corner

panther in the grass

it wouldn't matter
he could smell her perfume
from 40 miles away

& you don't forget her scent and
the way her hair looked like
black sails in the
western wind
soaked within the pale moonlight
of your last days
as a
human being

so how do you really decipher
who hunts who?
a riddle is a riddle is a
never-ending
tirade of unanswered questions
that they never dare
to ask

always watching, always wanting
the ****
& the thrill of it
all

so why does she walk blindly
into the den of wolves
full of loud music and heavy tension
& far, far too much whiskey
knowing full well
this night may be one of her
last?

she didn't seem to mind
when I asked

she smiled from her hospital bed





"oh, honey, he was well worth
the fight."

suffice it to say
I feel unseasonably
confined

tomorrow the sun
will rise
& the ships will
dance on the
ever-shifting horizon

but I will not see them

you will wake in
your world
& not have a single thought
of me

I am too far from the sea

& I wonder if it
bothers him
too
that I might one day
set sail on the wheels of
my '97 Ford Taurus
& never return

anchored upon land
is what I am



but the horizon
draws near




as you sleep in your world
& wake in my harbor




won't you please
think of me?

there are completely irrelevant
things in our lives
that we will remember until
the day we meet our
makers

her golden hair
in the South Carolina sunlight
the way that she smiled
that no still photograph could
ever replicate

we got married in a fever
it was a young and
wild summer
& I couldn't wait
to meet her
we were unlawfully
wedded
in the years
of our youth
& 'til death do us
part
is our god-given
truth

though miles apart
I could never imagine
being too far
from my dearest friend

the islands that call
bring us both
through our every
fall



for we know we'll reach the sea
in the very end

cunning and quiet
the room is shaking
& I've got no bread left
to take for the
breaking
I feel in my spine

I could have sworn you were mine

darling
my darkness is shed
upon your
bed
& the silence you
give
is the silence
I dread


I marveled upon you
one cold winter
night



& you left me with
nothing



but music
& plight