a moment is for a breath
still you gasp
a year is for improvement
still you are unsatisfied
a life is for salvation
still you worry

you must stop waiting
it is time
you must stop asking
you know
you must stop despairing
begin believing

you only hear their criticism
still you listen
you cannot feel how you grow
still you deny yourself
you can only see your flaws
still you look

you must begin to see the distance
you have traveled
you must begin to see the pain
you have overcome
you must begin to see the love
you receive from God

A dream with two sides
One of peace one of death
Carrying the bones of main street
Washed by the baptism of oppression
But somehow it doesn’t seem real
Because it didn’t happen to  you

A place with no mercy
Even shame awaits permission to speak
Where prayers vanish in disbelief
They are trying to take you there
To suspend your faith in mankind
Is to find one unwilling to agree with you

The work has come undone
The pages are no longer full of wonder
To speak of history is to pretend to agree
Once again those in the middle cannot hide
And to walk on which side of the bullet
Is the choice that now confronts you

We can never touch again
Because there is no room for love
We try to pretend
But it’s something we cannot rise above

We tried to do it
We thought it was an adult situation
But we’re really just kids
We failed to understand emotion

I told you what I could offer
But you deserve so much more
You need a man who loves you
Waiting is not what you asked for

My shadow is cast upon other men
Who approach you with love in their eyes
You silently loom inside all my decisions
As other women wonder if I tell only lies

They want to know where I stand
And I give them the honest truth
It is no closer to love than I am with you
But with you I recapture my youth

We close the door and enter our world
We love each other madly
Poison our bodies
And then part sadly

You beg me to come back
Not understanding how I forget
You pleasure me as no other
And yet I act as if we never met

But I do not forget
I remember
All too well
In my tortured slumber

The vision of your eyes in my mind
With tears of unknowing
How can you give a man so much
And endure his coming and going?

I cannot explain
I cannot commit to you
I cannot commit to anyone
And yet you remain true

How can you believe in me?
How can you see the future
In a man who has no present
And a heart that is never sure?

As the ***** beats the passion play
That only you can hear
I resist the urge
Your pain is my fear

Can you understand
That I hurt you today
So that I won’t hurt you tomorrow
It is uncertainty that lights my way

I keep turning pages
In a book that I cannot put away
The truth of our love hurts so much
But I rip out the pages that betray

I don’t want to read it
It’s about hurting a friend
I wrote your love story
But I don’t know how to write the end

Forgive my lack of courage
I need to tell you goodbye
I keep hoping you will do it first
That way I won’t have to tell you why

I'm looking at the last page
The one that won’t turn
It is your turn to write
Tell me if I should return

i wanted to spend all my time
inside your heart
instead I spent all of it
creating art
but if I reach you in this way
then it will be true
it will be true
my love
that I am inside of you
and because of this
you will know
that how I feel about you
is what I say is true
but you left anyway
because inside your heart
you never knew

Young man
You act so world weary
But what do you know about life
Was it your mother or your father
Maybe it was your friends

Young man
You’re too young to be tired
They haven’t taken it from you yet
There is so much time left
Is there something you need to say

How much time do you need
I can’t tell you the answer
But if you need any time at all
Then you’ll never start
Because what you could never be
Is a book written by your heart

Young man
I can’t see your broken mind
Did you think wisdom was pain
You can’t pretend to be crying
If you’re looking for meaning

Young man
There’s nothing sacred about defeat
You heard a preacher that you rejected
You became a tale of locked coffins
Salvation was not pleasing to you

How much truth do you need
I can’t tell you the answer
But if faith is a fools game to you
Then you’ll never know
Because what you could never be
Is a book written by your soul

I never saw it coming
I thought we were in that place together
I knew I’d finally found something
But being with someone who is lost themselves
Is living between perfection and thinking it all might end

I just want to live for a little while
It seems you’re more concerned with dying
If it’s all in God’s hands then what’s left in ours?
I’m watching you live for a future that may never arrive
You’re thinking about how you might you lose another friend

You picked out a flat earth for yourself
You don’t like shadows or horizons
Wherever the sun goes at night
You just invent another one

I never saw it going
But you were just passing through
I felt like a coffee shop on the corner
I made you relax but you longed for more
I said it’s alright you’re still going where I’ve already been

You picked out a small garden for yourself
But you don’t like fences or thorns
Whatever flies away in the wind
Plants itself where love refuses to be born

You dream of love
And fantasy
I cannot any longer
Because of reality
My face is shadowed
By a memory
While yours glows
From your insanity
The insanity of passion
And the sexuality
Imbedded in a promise
Of fidelity
And a lifetime
Of matrimony
Yes I am past that
But I speak honestly
About life
As a casualty
Of love
And adultery
But I need to believe
In love for me only
But if you cannot
Then let me be lonely

You’re living day to day
I live thinking I have plenty of time
You're not waiting for dream
Sleeping is like committing a crime

I wait for my dreams to take me away
There’s nothing to read on the walls anymore
All the pictures have been taken down
I have to forget or try to imagine it's like before

You're so strong
You’re already forgiven
He let you live another day
I wasted the one before
He taught you to walk like you’re in heaven
He told me I still need to pray

You don’t ask for much anymore
He taught you how to count blessings
And the day that the morning sun brings
Is the blessing I always seem to be missing

I think about the nights
You think about each day
We seem to live on opposite sides of the world
The light you reflect makes God smile
The darkness I absorb is why I’ve lost my way

You're so strong
You’re already forgiven
He let you live another day
I wasted the one before
He taught you to walk like you’re in heaven
He told me I still need to pray

I wish I would have told her
After they buried her it meant nothing
That’s what I wanted to say
To think of heaven
A glorious beginning
Without carrying pottery on your head
Or living under tin roofs
It was all buried now
The doubts
Your body
Your face
The color of your skin
The measures of small minded men
The one’s that somehow made you count too
But the time has arrived
No more moral dilemmas
No more fences to jump
No more lights flashing behind you
No more of the things you fear
Now it’s like watching a sunset
Or staring silently into my eyes
Not knowing what to say
But knowing how you feel
It’s what I wanted to say
That’s what I was thinking
Ten years from now
Or twenty
On a day called too late
Too late to ease her mind
It was hard for me to believe
I wanted her so badly
Yet she only knew sorrow
I could only see beauty
She could only see flaws
She was so unhappy
If I had only known
I would have talked to her
A stranger one day
A friend the next
I would have told her
A vision one day
My lover the next
Instead I suffered too
Because the woman who was so unsure
Didn’t know she didn’t have to wait for love
She didn’t have to die to find it
It was here all along
If she only knew

It seems I have to win her over at least twice a week
She said it was because she was only a part of my life
She said her life was about counting disappointments
For some reason she wants it all when it comes to me

These days there’s too much for us to think about
It would be so much easier, staring at an open range
Just being happy together, a slow wind dream
Why are we so far apart when our hearts are not

She thinks that sometimes I’m just on the make
A sometimes lover who knows how to talk forever
But I never said that, I only think inside my dreams
It’s no secret but she said drinking only makes waves

I have a plant I think about before I open the door
It’s the only one I own, red and green in the winter
I divert rivers and move the sun for it to live on
I would for you but you won’t wait by the window

She can sing a song, drive a truck, paint still life
Spin on a dance floor, but she drifts in her mind
She’s all these things, but really it’s only me
My dreams know the only truth is inside you

My face, like a wax figure
The party, a parade of curiosity
Laughing at what they will never remember
Unless someone plays the fool
I hide behind my bravado
An invention, a fabricated symmetry
But a hint of oddity remains
A strange sort of allure, fierce
Stronger than life itself
For life itself is no longer enough
Not like it once was
Every feast devoured
Weakness or strength, digested
But my eyes are not vacant
I understand my effect on you
My face, unaware of itself
Alone, without a mirror that reminds
The longer I forget
It’s flaws of no concern
Because that couldn’t be it
You smiled long enough to see
The lines that run together
And the blood rushing to fill them
I was naked once again
I knew it would happen
Civility, the weakness of morals
You wanted me to guess correctly
Were you afraid of God or of yourself
I made it easy for you by walking away
Neither thinking poorly of me for an indiscretion
Or drenched by the deluge of sin
I could not help myself
But if you could just tell me the answer
I will know why I waited for so long

Is it the reflection of my heart in your eyes
Or the light you bring to my life?
It’s a room I enter every time I think of you
As I close the door behind me
I wonder why anyone would ever leave such a place

Is it you who gave your heart away
Or did I just reach inside you and take it for myself?
It’s a selfishness that is stronger than lust
As I force you to notice me
I wonder how anyone would ever let you go

Is it the beating of my heart that keeps me awake
Or am I afraid of the dream?
It’s a moment I always regret
As I awaken and you’re not with me
I wonder why anyone would ever live inside a fantasy

If you don’t mean it
Don’t say it
If you can’t live with it
Don’t think it
Because tomorrow will come
And I will act upon it

You don’t know anything about me
There's just been talk
There's never been a night
But time has no place to go
What we think we know
Is only what we want to know

It's ok
I won't break you

You know I’m not society
Or the answer to your dreams
I’m a moment never to forget
But then your life will stay behind
And I will be gone
While love closes the blinds

It's easy for me to say these things
To be so sure about who I am
And how immune to love I can be
But is the fear of love
The fear of life
Or what I am made of?

It's ok
I'll keep looking

A woman is a mirror
It’s not always what she says
It’s how she suffers
And I know it to be true
But how can I live looking at myself
Even if I’m in love with you?

I can’t imagine your feelings
Not that empathy is my enemy
But it's too much sometimes
All I can see
Is how I’ve failed you
And everything you wanted from me

It's ok
I won't walk away

Finding a four-leaf clover
A game you played when you were younger
Laying by your feet
Watered by my tears right outside your door

A lucky penny
Lying next to the curb on the corner
It was in my pocket
A memory that always needed more

Life broke the promise
I didn’t like the reasons
I had to look inside at myself
It’s the only way to find my heart again

A black cat walking
I followed it because now I’m stronger
How can it be
That it does not scare me like before

It’s never too late if we are breathing
But I can’t ask you to change your life

Life broke it’s promise
I had to accept the reasons
I had to look outside myself
It’s the only way to find another friend

Don't speak to me of certainty
Not in the unseen
Not with zealotry
Do not bind me to the stake
For the flame is not yours to light
And the judgement is not yours to make
Do not tell me that what is right for me
Make no demands
Only show the fruits of your tree
The voices you hear are yours alone
For whether I hear silence or sound
It is my choice in how I atone

I can't treat you like the rest of my life
What it takes to pick myself up
Is not the kind of strength you want from me
I don't really fall down anyway
I think about it all night
And fit you in between work and a dream

It's really not that deep
But I committed to white water rapids
I have to see this one through

I can't treat you like a paycheck
I know I need it but sometimes I want to quit
It's not the real world anyway
Even though you said it might as well be
I keep thinking if I can write a check
Then our problems won't really be

It's actually very deep
Things move slow this far down
I'm still hoping you'll see this one through

If she ever did fall to pieces
Somebody must have put it back together
The lines separate the times of her life
But she's trying not to feel the changing weather
She only moves forward
Thinking she's finally going to be free
She spends all her time interpreting herself
She thought it's be nice if someone did it for me
She thinks she knows how to be strong
But that's what a loner hides in their mind
How hard is it really to survive
When you won't press your lips to mine?

He had to start thinking about her faults
Until they all became who she was
Even a blue sky can darken quickly
But his heart needs more than just because

There’s a good reason so don’t ask why
Tell yourself it’s none of your business
The two sides of love can never agree
The heart is not a willing witness

Find a mountain that’s willing
Or an ocean the rivers keep filling
Walk alongside God’s country
He’s the reason you’re still living

It’s not a New Year’s resolution
Or a habit you’re trying to break
It’s a way to find your life again
Before she became a mistake

Find a poor man to be giving
Or a child’s life you’re fulfilling
Walk with those who are hungry
They’re the reason you’re still living

I carry it with me wherever I go
The times we spent together
The heart I came to know

In my life I gave you my best times
We didn’t talk about the weather
It was an exploration of our minds

So many years have passed
We lost a mother and a father
But the memories are what last

I don’t think life passed me by
You’re not just an old letter
People can see you in my eye

You took your leave by your hand
I don’t know if living long is better
I don't know what God has planned

I wonder if I would want to know
Are we just a left behind feather?
There is no pretension after we go

Every year I think I’m dying
It’s when nature becomes browner
But then I survive my minds crying

I don’t live for love on the horizon
I just pray for the pollen of an old flower
The night kings finally became human

Our eyes met for a moment
But you looked away
Our eyes met again
And your heart began to obey

You act distracted
Your friends ask "What's wrong?"
You say, "Nothing"
But your heart hears my song

Your eyes told me
I knew you were mine
Your eyes told me
They gave me the sign

I know what you're thinking
You can't give yourself away
But this time you did
And your pride you did betray

Your eyes told me
I knew you were mine
Your eyes told me
They gave me the sign

Yeah...your eyes say you're mine
Even though you looked away
Yeah... your eyes say you're mine
There's not much else to say

Every man knows
How a girl acts
Instead of letting it show
She'd rather cover her tracks

You tried so hard
To not look my way
But I saw what I saw
You gave yourself away

Your eyes say you're mine
Even though you looked away
Your eyes say you're mine
There's not much else to say


Copyright 2011. All Rights Reserved. Mark Lecuona

And who is wise?
He
With sayings
Memorized
From a book
Written long ago
By men
Who worship
Stones?
And who is the fool?
She
Who cannot
Or will not
Listen to her elder?
Who denies
The water
That a rose needs
Does the gardener
Scoff
Because a rose
Is not a desert flower
Or unable to grow
From a rock?
Who is the fool
Who allows the bees
Their turn
While he looks away?
Assuming everything
Understanding nothing
Yet shouts
Ignorance
At the flower
When instead
A gentle breeze
And drops
Of love
Are needed
Who is the fool?
Who cannot see the flower
For what it is?
Who cannot sleep
Knowing the flower
Attracts others
So instead
He prays
And becomes
An eclipse
A cloud
A shadow
A drought
A blade
To cut down
Her beauty
So he can bury her
Under earthful scorn
Mocking her
For her ungrateful thorns
Because mere life
Was not good enough
Instead she dared
To be who she was
Yes he mocks
Knowing his wisdom
But unknowing his loneliness
Which will become the shadow
Over his life
Who is the fool?
The flower?
Or the gardener?

It was time to think about what she said
Another day had passed and I started wondering
Did I get what she was saying or was it over my head

I needed to stop talking and start listening
I thought about the cost of not feeing her emotion
I wasn’t being a lover in the things I was saying

She talked about things like loyalty and devotion
And how we shouldn’t let others separate us
What would you call a beach without an ocean?

This time what I saw in your eyes wasn’t lust
You walked away from the things I’d mistaken for love
You said being alone is better than living without trust

Fighting everyday was something you were tired of
Somebody once told me passion isn’t always pleasant
You said whoever said didn't know hurt from love

I always thought I was the gift, God’s present
But when you walked away I was ribbons in the trash
The only gift there ever was, was your heart’s presence

Her touch doesn't mean she loves me
My touch doesn’t mean I don’t
I don’t know if I’ll ever say I’ll stay to the end
Because I don’t know now what I knew then

I’m ready to walk on down the hill
I’m tired of climbing mountains
I don’t want to try that hard anymore
I can get the feeling walking in penny fountains

I don’t know if you think about waking up like I do
I want you to turn to me with the same thoughts in mind
Sometimes I think you do but it’s complicated being true
I don’t think enough about why I’m losing you

I’m ready to drive my car just up the road
I’m tired of flying around when life is all around me
I know how poor they are all the way over there
But there are people suffering the same right here

I don’t want someone to find my empty broken plane
The island grows all around except what you hang on to
Somebody wonders what you were thinking back then
You want to tell them you really tried to stay to the end

I’m ready to talk if you are
I decided you’d either like me or you won’t
I know how to be nice but I can’t worry about who I am
You’re so beautiful but time will tell if I’m your kind of man

Getting away with it
It's only for those without a conscience
When things happen to people
Sometimes they don't know why
Even when they do
But isn't that it
Something happened
Somebody was involved
I try to keep my ears open
There's so much suffering
We can only see one way to live
The choices we make are so permanent
It's not right
Life is not a song
That's only how it felt in four minutes
Living it is like a painting
You couldn't sleep and still you're sad
You thought about it for weeks
You didn't even know it
Now we see what you tried to say
But who really knows you?

Your mirror looks so sweet
It knows everything about you
It shines through all your doubts
And the things it knows that are true
I wanted to ask a few questions
Letting on is not your style
I stared long and hard at the streaks
The fact it wasn’t clean made me smile

I stared so long things moved in on me
Tell me about the men she charmed
I needed to get a drink first though
I didn’t want to be unarmed
When I got back I was ready
What I heard wasn’t what I’d imagined
You sat in his bed smiling at the camera
But you once told me it never happened

That’s what the problem was
The things I thought were secrets
Were the things I already knew
But I wanted to conquer my weakness
I had to stare into something
I was tired of running away
What I finally saw was not a reflection
But instead unshaven words I could never say

What can you tell that’s true about me
You can’t because if you could you’d run away
I never thought I’d see a glacier move
But that’s what’s bearing down on me
The slow carved rock is permanent
That’s who I am
That's what's true

I know how much time has traveled
I saw so much light maybe that’s why it’s here
You think the stars are so far away
But what happened long ago is there every night
It’s my story trying to catch your eye
I wonder if I can
It's up to you

Too many dreams laid upon your path
Too many eyes cried too
You have no idea except maybe you do
I have to forget you now
I’m not going to walk that way again
Not where it all began
Not what I once knew

The feeling in my feet is the question
I’m willing to wander aimlessly
I have to play this hand out so deal me in Lord
How can she believe she loves him like me
Maybe the one before me said the same thing
He doesn't give a ****
But I still do

I wish I could kiss your sad eyes
I want to taste your tears
I want to swallow them whole
I want them to see my heart

So my heart can see your soul

All I needed was to watch you blink away the pain
Then I knew you had not given up on love
But still the past is what I see in you

Let me wipe your tears away
Let me kiss your eyes
Let me whisper to your memories
I want to tell them the past ends today

I know everything that you want
My heart needs to be next to yours
It needs to see you from the inside
That’s the only way love can be sure

But heaven was never as good as your touch
When I see you I can think of nothing else
I want to make love to you again baby
Inside, where my heart and body melts

The last time we walked in the room
You never smiled so much
The only light we needed was in your eyes
While your eyelashes told me not to rush

I tried so hard to take my time
Then you whispered this time it's for you baby
That’s when I knew we really were in love
Even with closed eyes your heart was all I could see

I was death
Flying high beyond mere existence
For what was my life other than suffering
Until I saw a rainbow form from my dark clouds
For what *** of gold could my soul live without
That a perfect circle would never conceal?

My love
Until I walked upon the shore
I never knew I'd come home
For the light I saw
Beckoned
And it told me what to do
And when I came upon you
I turned once more to the sea
And the light upon the waters was no more
As it was now shining only upon me

And the heart that held your ear close
Tried to tell you of my past
But you said I was good because I wanted love
There was no vision that I could see
Except the pain you accepted from me
You knew I had long drifted
By the way I stared back at the sea

The ways of a goodbye is to linger
And the way of love is to wait until I am ready

You want me to say I love you
But I can’t even though it’s true
It’s not about being a bride and groom
Or a home to share the same room

It’s not a question of my feelings
Or the words you’ve been needing
It’s not about what I know is real
Or whether it is my heart you will steal

It’s about the moon and the sun  
How we are apart but live as one
It’s how the sun sees its own reflection
And how the moon starves for attention

Yes, everything is true
But it is on earth where love lives in pain
And though the lights of the sky are who we are
It is in quiet solitude where hope will remain

You want me to say I love you
But you know it’s already true
It’s not about until death do us part
Or wondering if you are in my heart

It’s not wondering about if or when
Or a foolish game of private pretend
It’s not about what we know is real
Or whether I share what you feel

It’s about the moon and the sun  
How we are apart but live as one
It’s how the sun warms your soul
And how the moon regrets long ago

Yes, everything is true
But it is on earth where love lives in sin
And though the lights of the sky are who we are
It is in quiet solitude where hope begins again

On the wings of a dream
You floated
In the search for meaning
You remained devoted
While fulfilling your aim
You thought of me
I possessed the cross of faith
And now have a star and a rosary
A presence sight unseen
You are my friend’s mother
But you reached out to me
And touched me as no other
From Ishmael and Isaac
And a belief in Allah
You brought me to Abraham
And braided God’s Aria
The message to each of us
Of which we alone shall hear
Where once was confusion
I sense clarity is near
I pray for you now
As I did in the past
Your gifts I will always cherish
And will keep until the last

Your hair is already dry but you’re not ready yet
For most people
it would be the end of the day but staying up late
is how you avoid the world’s problems
But really it’s your own because it seems everything
bad happens under the sun
While the moon asks you why do you come here
You expect too much

There’s someone like that in every town
But you fell in love with him
And he injected you with what everyone tries to avoid
You had too much time to spare
Whatever amount he needed didn’t matter anyway
It was going to happen
You were ready to write the story of your life
But it became his

You didn’t even get nominated as supporting actress
That’s all it really was
The man who runs your life while you live for him
But now he’s on your mind
It can never happen again like that but you know
You’re weak
Ten years have passed and you’re still over your head
Because that life is too hard to resist

Every time I have to explain myself
I realize something is not getting through
I can’t always worry about the things I say
Someday you'll know what I said was true

I'd rather be honest while we smile at each other
You seem happy but there is something to be found
One day you'll realize what's happened to your mind
Becoming lovers will happen without a sound

You will always be free
Even if we're together
It doesn't mean I don't love you
Because when I think of you I think of forever

I'll live my life while you do the things you do
All I want is time for us to be me and you

I could sing the blues all night long
Or be humble about having a life at all
I don’t want to bring anybody down
I'll let the leaves do that when they fall

I wonder about my place in your life
I have mine too and I don't need another
Sometimes it’s more than we can be
But without love we pretend not to suffer

You will always be free
Even if we're together
It doesn't mean I don't love you
Because when I think of you I think of forever

I'll live my life while you do the things you do
All I want is time for us to be me and you

You will know love
When you rid yourself of desire
You will know love
When you no longer demand or require
You will know love
When you set someone free
You will know love
When your faith flows gently
You will know love
When you live and let live
You will know love
When you do not ask and instead give
You will know love
When you can accept another’s choices
You will know love
When you listen to other voices
You will know love
When you honor the life of another
You will know love
When you liberate instead of smother
You will know love
When you understand a problem
You will know love
When you try to help them
You will know love
When a vow is renewed
You will know love
When your destiny is understood
You will know love
When you let yourself go
You will know love
When your heart tells you so

My face fell but not too low
I wasn’t ashamed
It’s only how you look when you can’t explain
You say something true
But it only makes sense to you
What was important was a mistake I’d never do again

There’s something you want me to say
You said I didn’t love you enough
It’s not what you think because life is so hard
I thought about what time would bring
Did I do the right thing?
I can’t prove how I felt or how I’m scarred

There’s a cloud over your head now
Blue skies don’t always wear make-up
You told me then you showed me and now I know
I never thought you would
You proved to me you could
I wonder if five years is enough to pay the debt I owe