i am cheap logic
bought from a man on the side of the street
who says it's the real stuff, nothing but the best
and i guess you believed him, i guess optimism ran in your veins that day
and i should be glad, really
except you've been tricked, and the man
walks away laughing with your petty change in his pocket
glancing back to grin at your smiling face
as you slip your arm around my waist
and i pretend to be worth it

dress me up, because i'm tired of painting myself
i just wanna hear your description
i like it better than mine
take me out, at least as far as the road
to show me why i usually stay at home

i am a solid shell
this logic has been welded into my surface
and i make sense, just ask anyone
i am a rock, i am an unmoving blanket
i am a hand to hold, a smile to be reflected
i am a solid shell
within which the logic falls apart

too bad wandering gypsies
don't give refunds, eh?
you'll never track him down

be my computer genius, crack this code
make me logic from spinning numbers
make me make sense
make me make sense
make me make sense

keep the optimism running in your veins
i like you that way

felt strong and weak
like a paradoxical spirit
walking between the lines of
yes i do and no i don't

felt like a skyscraper
among all the other concrete mountains
blending in, sticking out
windows open, blinds shut
walls untouched by rain, but
the water still falls in through the gaping frames
and onto the floor
seeping into the surface in patterns of
yes i do and no i don't

felt like a city among many
like one among thousands
like the only one with my mind cut open
like the only one thinking
real thoughts

my real thoughts
have not yet been made material
are they still real?
yes they are or no they're not

all i'm really looking for
is an answer

je ne suis qu'une femme
qui cache un enfant derrière son visage
cette fille qui me tient la main
et qui me suit avec pieds lourds
yeux soit au soleil ou au sol
mais jamais devant elle
et moi, je dois toujours
regarder derrière moi
pour faire certaine qu'elle n'est pas tombé
encore sur la terrain que nous traversons ensemble
ensemble, mais pas du tout
la même personne
je suis une femme, mais pas encore
fini mon enfance

just trying to take each day
separately from the others
maybe then the similar moments
won't run together like muddy water
down the roadside of a week or two
and seep through into the grass
of culminating time and too much rain

trying to pick the hours apart
and keep the bits and pieces of patterns
away from each other
so they'll just stop dancing around me
for now
it's true that they somehow make me whole
but i've thrown logic aside for a little while
just wanna see how the other side lives, that's all
let me do this, i need to justify
myself

can i be justified?
turn me into a philosophical debate
and justify me, prove me as a theory
concrete as an idea
make me an argument, defeat what makes me wrong
teach me myself
and i promise i will learn, just please
make me right

i am not
the sum of my parts

i am my parts, still scattered
and somehow arranged
in working order
fingers scrabbling to sew
the pieces together
into this shambling, smiling mess

i am not
the whole picture

i am the pixels, the sharp squares
of almost-colour
that mean nothing up close
but look ordinary, lifelike
and solid
from far away

i am far away
a million-pixel memory
moving into the whole picture
and fitting in just perfectly enough
to fade into the horizon
as the sum of my parts
becomes just another spark
trying to ignite a dormant soul

hold myself tight
find a new metaphor for loneliness
to symbolically scratch and burn away
find a different voice to speak my name
so i can hide under the covers
and pretend i hear nothing
let me be lost to myself for a little while
make it a treasure hunt
aren’t i worth the effort?

“where do we go from here?”
a line that haunts a million songs
like a small, aching insect
creeping in through the cracks in the lyrics
and spreading its wings to infect the expanse
of music that reaches my ears

do you ever feel like there’s a theme to your life?
some familiar collection of words, some thought
that pervades the space around you
and finds body in the world that follows
your every move
some chord, bright or dire or dim
that resounds in the echoes
in the tunnels you pass through
and sings silently after each word you speak
ringing softly beneath your footsteps
colouring the air you exhale

“where do we go from here?”
the first time i heard those six words
i have no idea where i was
or when
but i remember the thought that came to mind as
desolation
and it made my heart hurt
and i was happy
because i now i could prove its existence

“where do we go from here?”
one day i heard those six syllables
as i often did, above me
tinny and abrupt from the speakers
hidden in public places, among the plastic clouds
and spiderwebs
and i, at the precipice
of some great beginning
felt that thought beneath my step
and my soul sang, it breathed in deep
and i was happy
because now i could prove its existence

“where do we go from here?”
one day i found those words
etched into the notes of some electronic
heartbeat or sellout tune
and i, in the middle of a slow tumble
towards the realization of a loss
of a feeling i had worked so hard to find
felt the emptiness between my fingers
and the ground pressing into the soles of my feet
and the ache once again in my mind
and my heart and my soul
and i knew now the existence
of the feeling inspired
by the downturn of that phrase, six words
that speak to us all

“where do we go from here?”
i thought of this line on my own time
and never knew how to use it
until today, aware of a familiar scent
in the air, i sat down
and faced the six words haunting my ears
and embraced their meaning
closed my eyes and breathed in their truth
felt the confusion and desolation and joy
that seeped into my bones the harder i tried
to join myself with the forever aching phrase
that i now know was written
to describe the way i move through this life
and today, as i walked
with false purpose along the real lines of the road
i felt words pressing sharp into my cheeks
and i turned to you but could not let them free
six words, a simple door
into the patterned floor and closed curtains
of my untidy mind
and so i let the sentence be
swallowed it whole, let it sit in my lungs
a while longer
and i still have yet to ask you

“where do we go from here?”
has there ever been an answer to that question?