I spent so many years just counting minutes in my head
and chasing after Time in ways that almost left me dead
I pushed the pedal forward harder than I knew I should
the faster I could get through this, the better, for my good

I followed ticks and tocks of clocks wherever I would go
and learned to read their exit signs so nobody would know
that in my head, an hour more meant many hours less
with all the things I know I need to face and not forget

…

get down from there you little girl
'cause your escape is not this world
and when your feet touch earth again
release the fear that you will end
your flesh and bone does not define
a filter of a different kind  
on top of everything you are
exist'a mind, albeit scarred
like sap that forms upon a tree
your wounded head will bleed to be
and all the matter you once had
returns to you, do not be sad
'cause little girl there's hope for you
remember me, I fell once too

I'm eaten up by everything that gathers on my skin
The taste becomes familiar just before it settles in
And as my concentration goes from weak to weaker still
I foot the path ahead of me but cannot find the will
To be another passerby to everything I see
Avoid the one who made it near impossible to leave
Undress me with your subtleties before I walk away
Before I tell you all the things you never thought I'd say
My lips are moving faster than my body ever could
A race upon the bone along the back of where I stood

I left you alone to go wander
And see all the places you could
But people are more than their faces  
they blend in with more than they should
I thought we were on the same mountain
And moving with all that we knew
But you were a seeker in hiding
A dreamer who never came true  
So take every day of existence
As something you've always embraced
There's more to this life than you've offered
Than you've ever given away
I'm back on the border of solace
And trying to work for my keep
For there lies the secret of living
We find what we lose in our sleep
I will not proclaim that I had you
As much as I want to say, "yes"
you've never been more than a stranger
A quiet, untouchable mess
I made you an anchor of nothing
And hoped there was something I missed
But I have been waiting in vain to
Admit we could ever exist

nothing here is mended, it's underneath my skin
hidden by the layers of my flesh-colored chagrin
newness i've not welcomed, or not the way i should
for i could not compel myself to move from where i stood
and so the clock has started, it's turned itself anew
keeping time despite the fact that i can't follow suit
i'm parallel to minutes, for seconds pass too quick
but i believe eventually my hands will lose their grip
it's telling of my nature, symbolic to the core
the way i want to hold onto the things that fuel the war
soon i'll be surrounded by all that i have made
the demons that i've kept inside will go out on parade
see, someone had been searching my lonely wounded heart
and piecing it together every time i fell apart
but i have reached my limit, my seeker left me be
in body - yes - in spirit - no - i'm circling this tree
its roots are the foundation, personified divine
nurtured by the fluids that are leaking from my spine
i'm mindful of the secrets stored within this source
filtered through perceptive thoughts and carried as a force
everything i'm made of are things that can't be seen
and that is why the seeker lives - to disengage the screen

I see You in the little things and everywhere I go
the every single in-between betwixt the reap and sow
You’re every conversation I could ever hope to have
The Words I keep inside of me because I live in lack

I feel You in the morning when I’m taking my first breath
when I am done my dreaming and I wake to live again
You are the reassurance I need every single day
The Strength I have at all in my own broken -hearted state

I know You like a Love that had the heart to bare it all
enough to be a witness to the hardest kind of fall
Our every interaction leaves me softer than a cloud
and dare I be so bold as to say all of this right now

grains of sand pass through the glass and wearied i become
flesh is flesh and given time, eventually i'm numb

aged and stale i've bitten off much more than i can chew
but rather than admit this now i veil what i undo

to my dismay i can't escape the heavily stitched seams
for even when i close my eyes i see it in my dreams

so vivid here and brightly lit, just as i once was
the memories of you and i trickle through my blood

love of mine, if i have failed, please know that i still breathe
only by the air you gave and stored inside of me

the sense i make won't measure up to what i can't explain
all the ways you nursed my soul and quieted my pain

to this day, when you walk in - a room - i open mine
the one you've kept inside my chest, so tidy and refined

come again and stay this time, let's fly as we once did
above the ceiling of our hearts like doves that can't be hid

Drip drip drip*
(to) flip the switch
Lay you out
remember this

Flattened lines
without a spine
Backbone gone
you're out of time

What to do
I'm split in two
Halfway there
we aren't through

Needle's cold
so veins can hold
Nothing more
than what you sold

Took what's free
atoned the sea
Running red
with all of me

The Truth about The Author is impossible to know  
without admitting weakness for your character to sow
if there be any question that your person begs to ask
then lay it at the Feet of Love and pray for Words to pass  
the more that you are humbled by Intention’s Purest Form  
the less you’ll be inclined to follow wickedness conformed
The Truth about The Author makes it possible to grow
to reap from the Beginning with a conscience deep in woe

What's worth more, your life or mine?

Is one a purpose undefined?

Do I have less to think and say

on any single given day?

If you're above then who's below?

You've made the claim but do you know?

'Cause how is judgement really passed?

Propelled by truth or moved too fast?

And if you try to pull the reigns

Can you uphold what it sustains?

Or will the mark you tried to make

suspend the lives you put at stake?

Tonight I want to speak until my voice does not exist
a word is only worth the breath a speaker gives to it
absorbed into a tongue where comprehension has a name
Where everyone is part of what makes all of us the same
and you can dot the eyes to keep the pressure in your head
The movement of the earth around the sun above your bed
But in the windy cities there is nothing you can do
To open up your lungs enough to permeate the truth
My teeth are falling out but I can mumble what I mean
The syllables enough to take this matter to extremes

I stepped into my twenty's shoes without a day to spare
and watched my whole anatomy unravel on a stair
the cross I begged my heart to trust was finally in sight
and in a year I'd raise it up eleven mountains high
to faith and hope and love that somehow brought me to this place
in that specific order I began to seek Thy Face

i think i will survive if i can wait a little more
i'll wait until
the last of you is walking
out the
door
the hours have been good to me
the miles
make it
clear
that life can still be beautiful
without you being
                           here
it's when i press my lips to yours
that everything
returns
and opens up a world with an intensity that
burns
enough with the explosives
i don't want them
anymore
the back of you in front of me, i'll run to close the door

I felt my heart be still tonight, I focused on my breath
I rearranged my thoughts so I could get out of my head
I started building bridges and I crossed them every day
I learned about my body in a certain kind of way

I picked apart the memories I’d never written down
and realized carnality was always on the ground
to go below its surface took another kind of strength
I’d never be this human ever in my life again

I spoke my truth indelibly, with every cell in me
and fell apart in ways I didn’t know that I would need  
I felt my heart go still tonight, I focused on my life
I went to sleep with Hope that I would see another night

I've dipped my feet in the water of you but still the ocean remains
And when I look out as the moon pulls the tide I burrow my head and restrain

How can I swim if I do not know where your current will lead me to stay
But the wind in my hair and your salt on my skin keep asking me gently to say -

stay.

it's likely you have come to know the closeness of your skin
and made as much or little of the way you'll die with it
we've all consumed the poison we injected like a drug
but told ourselves the blame is on the

ones who made this up
the justice of inheritance, rewritten every day
has talked for long enough to know there's nothing left to say
and as we try to rearrange, to shake, to even lie
the proof is like the time and passes every day alike
so let us be enlightened or deceived because of choice
we haven't changed a single thing we've added to the noise

you talk about wanting to be without us
and cut me to pieces like nobody does
i won't be defended by anyone here
i've learned to accept to them nothing is dear
and all of the past likes to conjure itself
to hide in the body of everyone else
i cannot be bothered to know what they'll say
they change with the seasons, they change with the day
so why should i focus on judgmental words
when i can grow wings by the wisdom of birds
admire and watch the whole world from above
and come down when there is a shortage of love
reminded by evil and moved to restore
i lived like you once but cannot anymore

the yoke that put its weight on me has never touched my neck
has never told a story I could easily recollect
the words were always simple but the difficulty was
the burden of the proof I had to carry with my tongue

I had to find a way to silence voices in my ear
and all the while pretend that I could make them disappear
so I became my burdens and I let them weigh me down
I put them on my neck and said, “I’ll let you have me now”

the yoke became the part of me I learned to live inside
a gentle sleight of hand that ushered peace into my mind
the burden said, “I’ll take it,” but the burden didn’t know
the weight of every part of me was hidden in the yoke

I am a fish and you are the sea
  Half of your waters contained within me
Frozen or flowing I need you around
  To keep me from earth that can gather and bound
I'm flaking with salt that falls off my bones
  Releasing itself into bodies unknown
Who will I save and who will I ****
  With the levels I spread taken in by the gill
Keeping away from the surface of light
  I swim in the deep and put up a fight
The pressure surrounds me on every side
  And within its grip it is harder to hide
The farther I go, the less that I see
   "Where is my sight?" said the fish to the sea

If you’ve set the intention you’re ready to speak
And lean into Light and then let it all leak
It will come from a place of the solace inside
And out of the corners and halls of your mind

If you’re ready to speak let your words be like salt
And cover the places that make all your fault
That will turn into lessons to learn and to teach
That are pillars of light for those out of reach

Let new languages come as you learn how to Love
Move dressed in the mercy from our God above
May wherever you go and wherever you stay
Be places and people who make you okay

I've given up my fingers so I wouldn't feel your skin
Or let you lay your hands on me the way it's always been
I'll stay inside my head where there is nothing left to lose
And watch myself surrender to the memories of you
I cannot say I want this but I cannot say I don't
And living in the middle makes goodbye my new hello
I've waited out the pressure I was feeling in my bones
I've realized the meaning, what it means to be alone
And if you choose to fight it know my hands are fast asleep
They're locked away with someone who has promises to keep
Although I couldn't see it in the corner of my eye
My person has a reason to continue asking why
But after so much breaking we can never be the same
Or settle in the valley, it's the meaning of your name

There came a night when everything I never knew I kept
Escaped my skin, a whisper's breath - you held me and I wept
And somewhere in the time it took for me to settle down
The simple act of being calm seemed all the harder now
From then a salty kind of rain would daily burn my skin
And multiply the passageways through which I'd let you in
I needed them to flood enough for me to let you out
Create the kind of waterfall that made a single route
And as you'd drift away from me, return the strength I lack
Return to me a state of mind I want to set on track
Within the absence you'd supply I'd shed my weary gaze
And take another step toward the frame for which I'm made