my lips are not anyone else's
my mouth has a place of its own
and if you have ever thought different
exposed be the pride you have known

to see with the eyes of your spirit
you have to submit to its breath
then even in deepest of waters
you'll manage to make every step

it's simple enough to remember
but somehow the first thing forgot
when rhapsodic verbiage is offered
we sing to a tune we are not

but follow the song into silence
your very own tongue will explain
there's nothing that ever was spoken
that won't be repeated again

I see the kind of people I've been seeing for a while
The ones who carry loneliness and hide it with a smile
If no one here wants to explain the tendencies we share
Then drivel on about the way we're barely even there
The point of all the thoughts we have is not to let them go
But rather find a way to share the little truth we know
Combine the commonalities and everything is clear
We all can be the kind of sun that never disappears
But if your day becomes the night reversed the other way  
Then who will you be talking to when night becomes the day
Bereft of any meaning you could ever hope to find
There's nothing in the darkness that can edify your mind
So choose the things you want to say and learn what time has taught
The lesson here is how to fight the way you've never fought

I've not a thing to tell you that I've not already said
my fancy for the stories, like the thought of you, is dead
When what I wasn't seeing made its way into my eyes
The pressure disappeared and carried with it every "why"
There's nothing to recover of the people that we were
And I don't need a reason to admit it anymore
Suppose I never let you make your way inside of me
Would you still wander in without a place to wipe your feet
you never want to hear whatever challenges your truth
And fortify the walls your sense of helplessness removes
But I don't need to be here anymore than I have been
Examining the layers of this unprotected skin
I'll go beyond the cycles and the sameness you have praised  
And learn to be again the kind of human I was made

I've thought about the future ever since I understood
that I could walk with purpose in the shadow of the good
And when I wasn't looking I would fall into a trap
but everyone who knew me knew that I was coming back
I may have been unfolded and divided into three
But every part together is the whole of what is me
I'm talking to myself as much as I have talked to you
I won't be too upset if you don't see the way I do
I've been here long enough to watch a dream become a wake
A state of adaptation I can keep or try to change
I met my little self again and there I was in awe
I thought she wouldn't know me but my goodness was I wrong

I told my mother's story in a way she never could
Surrounded by the present in a past misunderstood

they'll never want to know you and they'll never let you leave
so trust me when I tell you there is nothing left to see  
and even when the morrow brings another to your door
remember there's a person who is waiting at the shore

I traced my mother's words with such a careful steady hand
It's there they have remained, upon the patterns in the sand  
And they will not be washed away by anything that comes
They're written on my heart and can't be claimed by anyone
The tide is pulling faster and she told me that it would
Her life has told a story I have always understood