What are you supposed to do
when you miss someone who forgot you?
you're a face in the space of a magazine
a girl in the midst of a cloudy dream

what are you supposed to say
when you love someone who just won't stay?
you're a stream filled with heartless tears
a girl who hasn't been held in years

how are you supposed to deal
when you care for someone who doesn't care how you feel?
you're an abandoned swing alone in the wind
a ******* the edge of a swaying rim

hold my hand, be my friend
keep my secrets, understand
why is it she is willing to be everything
when her closest act like nothing to her at all
how come the fallen are the first to catch us when we fall?

I am, you are...
thinking... that you know where your heart is and how
to stay out of the eye of the storm,
or how to look away from it and
all those things that are so easy to get frustrated about
                                                                ­                                screaming into
pillows falling
                                        faster into
light
dark
close
open


SHOUT: you found the things the world threw away
the light of day
                                             showered in
blood spattered
                                                       ­               men with their faces down
clouds
gray
open -
red -
close


STAND

even blind you know the world never started spinning on its own
you could sit and wait for the river to drown you
or be the first to reach out

it takes one

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my *******,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

caught! caught! caught!
lustrous bodies tampering with light on either
side
my hands suffused on my knees
my eyes closed against them

dreams about drunkeness and
rain on the back of necks
hiding places
and mouths like ribbon convulsing in september
wind.
but no sound
ever.
feverish,
silent existence.

wake up unsure of the
solid
wary of gravity.

the bodies float along
side my own
even more
animated then before
dripping with pulpy colour
overripe and smelling of death
and summer
and backalleyways as tight and hot
as a vein
and hair dipped in seawater.

i keep tricking myself
into thinking
it is about choice
and reality falls away
like a row of convicted
bodies
backed against a wall

and then it is just me
coy, faceless, constricted like a mouse with
fangs in my neck
and them, bleeding
fantasy
all
heart
all
heart
with

teeth.