I pull the curtain of fog over me
To skew vision for nights like these
Nights I think that I need
Nights that keep me blurred
Around the edges of their eyes
As they fall in love with me
It’s pitch black, sometimes navy
Either way, it’s dark

We were smoking on the porch
And he was looking at me
Like I was something real
He’s naïve, of course
But on these nights, I’ll take it
The fog is getting thicker
I wanted it this way
This is all my idea, my doing

Sometimes in the morning
The curtain has slipped up
And there are hours
Before I can pull the sweet
Promise of the kiss of death
Back over my eyes
To **** out my soul
I need it, I think I need it

The fog gives us all cover
As we go out to waste our lives
Pretty girls with charcoal eyes
Stiff drinks to make us cry
Those mornings when the fog slips up
And a lover is there, left over
That’s when I need cover the most
They can’t see clearly, not me

I’ve been veiled in my delusion
Shrouded from the truth so long
I can’t go on without it
My friends all live in the fog
My lovers as false as the words
I let spill from my mouth
After one too many
I’m lying, but they let it slide

They’ll let me stay in the fog forever.

I don't think I was created
For public consumption
But I draw blood red lipstick on anyway
Do I look OK?

The joy I feel
cannot be captured
in a pixilated square
But my lipstick is there

The pain I live with
Should not be ignored,
or worse,
exploited,
for the approval
of a judgmental public

My body doesn't need a filter
It is creased and warm
It is vibrant, it is alive
And no photograph in the world
Can convey who I am

But still - we are slaves
to anonymous approval
Do I look OK?

Am I even in love
if he's not on brand?
He can move my entire earth
with a hand on my thigh,
but what's a soul on fire
without the approval of the faceless mass,
yay-ing or nay-ing,
as they claw at their screens?

I need to know
Do we look OK?

I want to love you
I want to mean it when I say it
But the demons inside me
giggle at the notion,
saying, honey, what makes
you think you deserve love?

It's not like you always imagined
And it's certainly not better.
When they ask you to talk about it,
if they ever do,
you'll have nothing nice to say.

Maybe that's your fault,
you little killjoy,
Or maybe,
he shouldn't have treated you
like the pile of happy tissues
that pile up beneath his bed.

That bad dream of a human being
That one that you despise
Who caused you so much pain
The hurt pulsating behind you eyes

That shadow behind a fragmented smile
That terrorizes you,
From the hidden pockets in your mind
For days, for months, for years ...

Thank her, for she's your greatest muse

Jealousy is a beast eating at us all -
No amount of preparation, warning, level headedness
Can ready the mind for the heart's selfish paranoia

A feeling that can make a happy woman turn bitter
And a proud man resort to petty games of children

What's a sweet, young girl to do?
When the beast of nightmarish imagination
Takes a bite out of her once practical mind

She can put up a fight
Though it may not be worth it
Or let the monster take hold
Get on her knees, smile and take it

Imagine them together, jealousy says
Images beyond the power of repression
Images she's created herself in the back corner
Of her filthy, shameful mind.

Imagine what they did.

Remember the days
When beers and warm nights were enough
Where I carried my shoes on the walk home
And I lied to a good man
By letting him think
No one else had been in my bed
The night before him

Three years later it’s easy to see
The memory play out like it’s on TV
I told myself then that it’s not a lie
We just weren’t talking about it
I told myself I have no loyalties

I guess I was right

It was August and the air in the attic where I lived
Just felt like summer – moist, suffocating
Hard to sleep in – painful to wake up
Strange smells clung to my sheets
Deep purple – My mother bought them

I ate breakfast with him
He paid – a gentleman
Even on nights when I was
too drunk
too tired
too uninterested
To let him touch me

In the back of my mind … somewhere …
I worried about when he’d ask me
To be his girlfriend
I worried about when I would have
To make it unofficial

But in the thick humidity of that summer
Our apathy was enough to keep the parties going all night

And every morning when the sun blared through
My tiny, attic window, waking me
And drying on the sweat that reeked of Budweiser
Reminding me subtly – that it might time
To grow the **** up
To have the tough talk
To learn the art of saying no

I made plans for later that night