I just needed to hear something
soft like
yellow from the lamp or
my love because
I can't stand the haunting hum of waiting
the anxious, ancient hour under my bone
half bent, ticking
picking my flaws like a hurt bird;
it is my time i give away
& unlike my heart
sadly stuck with me
i cannot keep, cannot get
these minutes back

The colors of late September
talking and falling again
announcing each other like
gulls for bread
remind me that I've listened

yet every day is black and black
the mask's unsettling sweat builds and
underneaths a frowning girl
settling into it

yes darling, I see the blue
I see the coins stored under my lips
haven't paid off and
you've painted nothing to hide the holes
i'd ask for your hand in this and squint
but you, you must not have heard it

and here i've been
as cooperative as ants /
as sad as fate
with hands as red as the ibis
falling tired and certainly
tired of falling

you don't need to be drinking to reveal a sober thought
the words are there inside you if you're not afraid to talk
We have too little time to be offended by ourselves
so throw away the bottle and forget there was a shelf
Let time be your instructor, it will whittle down with you
and show you something greater in a way you cannot do
I've read the twelve believers and considered all their words
they're either all too certain or completely all absurd
so let us make decisions with a judgement of our own
give wholly unto others we may never even know
The point is we've been fighting for a point we've tried to make
but loaded every message with a fountain of mistakes

My* Monday blues they
start with you.
I am amused I'm not
moved, I
may be reused it is
the day before
Tuesday
I choose blue before
muse I must
stay in my own shoes
I clutch fists it is
no use I trust
come ups from cruel while we
lust what is proof-less
is seemingly useless
I
rust like the useless
like metal, like bruises
so quit acting clueless
I've dropped more than clues and
now I must move for
I cannot keep chewing all of your
lies up for you

it is when I sit with
beautiful things
I am reminded that
nothing ever keeps;
the words might smear or
the air should dampen
and if
you should not believe me
ask the flower what it is like for her
at nighttime and then
ask her to repeat it
explain to her
what it is like to be
lived in

hold me down to the
stage;
today
I cannot make pretty songs of us
like
how much I weigh
I'm one hundred and thirty three pounds
in love with you
I'm
twenty eight years too old and
twenty eight years away from your legs
I'm
blonde
I'm
a lady
a waiting woman
making food,
away from your mouth
I'm making
mistake after distaste for
this pattern this
extra pace for shapes that
never fit us so
when I get dressed and when I
detest it I'm
trying something new I'm
having
nothing to do with you

I'm speaking in
leaves and with dirt against
trying to sleep
repeating the hot hum of heartache
& stopping to breathe
I have been
inside & under
this horrible robe /
its ropes tied too close &
I'm starting to choke /
breaking-down wine & the whys to find
fumbling's curse
repetitive lure-slurring prose
in my own faulted purse
this is a
tree and then paper
a bird and now blood
& all of the bones you've swept up
love,
stick out of the rug