I've unwound my crooked spine
and forced it into a straight line
Planted my feet in the ground
and grew a whole new world for you

I've choked down a thousand perfect words
and left them stuffed into my throat
Almost impossible to breathe
And then on top of that, I smoke
Covering the metaphors with tar
And coating my lungs in a joke

A time or ten
I've lost a friend
To overdose, to suicide, to car wrecks
Death sneaks around on silent toes
Remaining in the shadows of the things we'll never know
And life is just over
Before you even know it, there is nothing
And no one
And nowhere left to go
that you haven't already been

I've been stung a hundred times
by the spines of porcupines
Or so it seems
as my voodoo doll heart
falls apart
from an overabundance of pins
and a lack of sturdy thread