You've ruined smiles for me
Twisted them, beyond definition
Curves of lips ***** up my spine
Ghosting the air over my arms
Like an arctic breeze
Whispered air of whispers
Which curses the smiles
That I follow following me
Simpering smiles and snide smiles
Curtains over gritted teeth
And the false niceties that are
The fastest path to achieving what they want
Not what they need, they don't need smiles
Nobody needs the smiles anymore
Don't smile, unless you wish
To be mistrusted by the many
I cannot smile in the street
The price, a sneer or slap
So I cast my eyes down to the cobbles
And watch the rain wash away
The years' and years' worth of salt
Don't smile at me, please
It makes my throat sting

I do love you, daddy
And you break my heart
When you stand at the door
All dejected and half-smiling
When she says she's already
Got a lot of clothes to wash
So yours won't make it onto the pile
And then you nod, with a quiet
"Goodbye," and you slip out of the house
Away into the clear morning
To miss us again for another day
And I want to cry into my mug
When you've left and all that's in your wake
Is the spinning washing machine
Full of our clothes and none of yours

I suppose the happy are dead
The broken are unliving
I rest in graveyards, under clouds
Watching the world spin
Twist fingers through the waving grass
That grows around the graves
Ivy weaving over crumbling stones
Letters faded and worn now
But still a stone, standing
Holding up the ceiling of grief
For the body locked beneath
They're happy places, graveyards
Resting grounds for noticed souls
Cherished in life and loved in death

I want to know if angels cry
When they see what we're doing
Down here from the sky
I wonder if they watch us
As we wreck this world
Wreck all these places and people
Spinning little hurricanes
All caught up in our own eyes
Centred around what we can see
There's little room for any others

Or their own catastrophes
We live and work around ourselves
Self-preservation is what we
Never seemed to manage to lose
We always needed it, didn't we
Because of the dark alleys and back roads
The grimier corners that made us look twice
Over our shoulders and tighten our hands
Around the weight of the world on our shoulders
Because we didn't trust anybody else to hold it up

I used to think it was awful to be
Someone who spun around themselves
But I think I'm starting to find
That maybe, it's better to bind
Yourself to yourself, and keep arms wrapped around
Push up away from the hardened ground
I wonder if the angels see
Every tiny smile shared between the few
Who stopped to try and enjoy the view
Of a broken world full of people who want to fix it.

We are the two halves the universe has given
Multiple intertwining pieces to make up one shell
To house this pearl that we hold between each breath
A shimmering, gleaming beauty, heart between those two cages
Of ribs and lungs, lungs full of my breath and your breath
Breathe in, breathe out, through my lips and out of yours
Intoxicatingly acidic, this drunken mist seeping under our skin
Silvery and silent, twisting and turning along those veins
That you trace with fleeting fingers along my wrists
And poisoning my eyes in the most beautiful sort of way
You see, my darling, they only wish to look at you
No other can compare to the moonlit pulse that you provide
Those notes that climb from your mouth and spill from my lips
We are two beings, into one person, two mouths moulding
Into one trail of sparks that they can follow, but never find
For we are beyond this place, we are rising and falling
To the beat of galaxies, simultaneously falling apart and reforming
Beneath closed eyelids covering eyes of burning flames
With that void of defiant nothing, dead centre
Inside that ring of molten flesh and blood

Your lips taste of ash, ashes of the bodies you leeched before
A now-silent battleground of dying beauties, losing in love
Eyes open and leaking those tears of ice that we knew too soon
Trailing salt and tearing apart soft skin to make way
For bleached bones, stripped of smooth flesh and waking lungs
The sky was far too dark to frame you, my dear, as you looked
Upon the fruits of your desires, the prizes of your games
Those twisted, strangled bodies, all askew and leaking grief
They all heaved in their dying breaths, and all reached
Those rotting, dripping arms towards your unmarked back
As you turned and you walked from them, those pitiful souls
But you and I are different, to them and you, you and them
We are different to the mutilated faces, massacred bodies
We are different to the burning tears and the ashes
Because, it's you and me, these bodies that can be along together
Share in those priceless moments that span a lifetime
How could we be the same as those bodies?
Wake up, look at me, tell me with those ashen lips
Tell me that we're different, tell me that we're different
But you can't, can you? Look me in the eyes and tell me you love me
And I'll know that you want my breath for yourself

Your hands are filthy, trailing grime
Dragged through loveless gutters
They don't belong on this shrine
Or grabbing at the shutters
That bind together the pieces
Of my broken love for self
I've been trying to iron out creases
But I really don't want your help
Has anyone ever looked at you
And told you the very thing
(You've never heard the truth)
No, so I will: "you're disgusting"
And no, not by your definitions
You've got no **** to be small
Or fluttering waist; a malnutrition
No, it's just you, you in all
A worthless, trailing, entitled brat
Nobody ever told you "no"
At least, you didn't hear that
You heard 'teases' and "I don't wanna go slow"
Some blame systems, I blame
The ones who gave you this name
Who put the very thoughts inside your brain
And slid you into the picture frame
Where I am an object, for you to unwrap
And tear to ribbons when you can't undo
The masking tape keeping me trapped
And when you're finished, when you're through
I'll join the others, tossed aside
Because you can't be bothered to understand
The truth that, to you, has been cried
"We're not pawns on your checkered lands."

Who told you
That you had
To want me?

I need you to stop
Please
Stop
I need you to step away
Backwards
Let yourself see the entire screen
Of programmed chaos before you
All separated, eternally separated
By that layer of glass that cannot shatter
Unless you want it to
But would you ever want it to?
No, no, of course not
That would be far, far too M E S S Y

I need you to be quiet
Please, just for a moment
Or a while, or a little longer
It's all up to you
Everything's in your hands
All the wire-ends and spark plugs
The human race coughed up
What would you like to do with them?
Just please, please
Don't make any more M E S S  

You've been staring at that spot
For hours, hours on end
Don't your eyes hurt yet?
Haven't they crossed
Out of focus?
How can you bear to stare
For so long
At so little?
Why don't you, can't you
Just step backwards
Because there's an entire picture here
A whole image, crystal
In ****** colours, splattered
For you to see in whole
But do you want to?
I confess,
We've made a bit of a M E S S