There’s a knife in my brain

and it goes:

cut slice open

cut slice open

cut slice open

and bleed.

my mouth is a tunnel of words

too big for my mouth, and they spill and tumble

and crash and fumble

like a traffic jam-

Hi nice to meet you, Hinicetmeetoyou

Do you know English, girl? Yes, but it doesn’t know me

and who put these cuffs around my lungs?

What did they do wrong, I haven’t spoken any words

I have a paralysed

tongue.

Is it okay if my lungs use the phone? There’s someone on the line, a heart all alone-

A heretic queen, oh this devilish thing

cries,

when was it a crime to breathe? Grant these lungs this courtesy,

And if the heart is accused of heresy, I say ‘hear me!’


You see,

if you leave the heart to wilt it will just stay,

still.

It needs a friend- or two,

to beat

And you’ve got to feel the rhythm,

in your feet

or it’s going to lose that drumbeat

to which you

sing.