I just want to know what hold this town has on me
why it won’t let me go
and why it breeds such pain

We used to sing barefoot with shooting stars
your lips boozed and my heart fluttering
taken sun tea or sun kissed
always drenched in river rocks
Your hair changed like the moon
and my heart stood strong at your feet

but where are we now
I’ve let this heart free
But it will always chose you
and I’m not sure I can sing with the stars anymore
they just remind me of what was

I was once a little girl
with ringlet curls and grass-stained knees
I was scared of the ocean
and soft for my mother’s tomato vines
but I was not pure with youth
because I did not feel clean then,
no white satin or freedom
I was not full of love

I feel pure now, softer
I know my whole, my skin, the corners of my mind
I know the flowers I have planted outgrow the ones I will pick
That lambs come in twos and ewes make me cry
I know how much one honeybee is worth and why I had to let you go
It is all bringing tenderness
It is all tenfold my young freckled face and sleeping heart

It is all too loud
and I am crawling into myself
and I am bowing my head
and I am leaving now

The light, two redbuds, and your moss covered roof
take me home
take me to the light
where the grasses hug your toes and the flowers glow like sunshine
Pieces of canyon, ivy, the woodpecker’s holes
It is soft there, I am no longer afraid

the light
the light
the light
and Her
and Her
and Her
and this place, these soft people
please heal me
please let me be strong
but only for myself

I’ll whisper flowers in your ear
leaves to your palm and petaled pockets
latin and ancient
and walk away when you look back
you need not know more than what speaks to my heart

It is not perfect,
but it is something

So you lay here wondering why he doesn’t touch you like that,
or why he does

And it doesn’t seem fair your beauty be ****** in like this
you are only woman but you are holy
sacred light, hallowed bloom, and Her

I only like nasturtiums
only bachelor’s buttons
calendula

I think you only like me this way
only soft and silent
when apparently you love her any way

I am soft and loud
I am the rose, the thorn, and the petal
The rapids
and Her love