i like to sit and listen
he poured his heart into every note he wrote
and i feel his weathered soul in his music
played by steady hands and passion

i like to sit and listen
and wish i could train my sorry fingers
into bringing beauty from a page to life
but instead i write sad little love poems

i like to sit and listen
there's warm and then there's sun-warm
and sun-warm is like if happiness had a temperature
so i'm washing my heart in the rays

i like to sit and listen
and feel clean and whole again
when it falls i'll fall too and be cold
but until then i'm listening

it's so cold outside that i can hardly think
think of anything but you
my fingers are too numb to write you
all the sappy love poems you deserve
see, i've got this vision stuck in my head
of you and me together in the best ways
and it dances around behind my eyes
every waking second and it's driving me mad
i've imagined we have this fire
this passion and earth-shattering love
it keeps me warm on the coldest nights
and it makes me question my faith and
everything i thought to be true
god, i just want to be alone with you so i can explain
explain that i hate endings and bad blood
and reality and so we should stay in bed
give me inspiration for songs
i write them in my head when i look at you
and when i think about your eyes
i feel my breath leave my body
when they look up at me from below
it makes belief in a miracle seem natural
'cause seeing is believing and i've seen
the unbelievable in those ocean eyes
your hands... is it too much to ask
for them to keep mine warm?
i've got bad circulation and a tendency to rely on people
your lips on my ears and stomach and everywhere
there's no reason to not go back to that
and stay in that
and build our home in that
but right now i'm standing outside the party
that i left alone with you inside,
kissing some other girl
i can't give you much but i can promise
poems with my heart poured out like ink
and a place in my bed and
more devotion than you deserve
right now i'm waiting in the cold to go home
but no matter how far i go from you
i can't get you off my mind and i can't
erase where your hands have been
in, on, under, over...
i won't be over this anytime soon
even if i did make a new year's resolution to do just that
you are in the air i breathe (however reluctantly)
and reluctantly i just cannot for the life of me
let you go

you lovesick metronome
sluggish and sinful
reluctant to let go and be whole
a newborn clinging to its past lives
disappointing your hopes
gripping memories like gripped hips gone cold
"over it" but not really
melancholic and panicked:
if you cannot forget what wasn't worthy
then how will you rise up and
make a name for yourself and
do something worthwhile and
make your mother proud and
you know she's proud no matter what but
she could have everything if you worked harder but
you can't even convince yourself
that you deserve it
that you can make it, make it, make it
make it something incredible
you treacherous dreamer
be a household name
come hell or high water

if a heart breaks in any other chord progression than Am-F-C-G
did it really break at all
i sense a rhythm, feel a pattern
and my pitiful little fool of a heart keeps time to its failures
again and again i sit in the same boat
and sing the same sad love songs
and cry over someone who doesn't give a ****
i know the words from memory and feel my throat catch at the same time every time
the repetition is comforting and disquieting all at once
shouldn't a heart as battered as this learn by now
that it will be hurt and used and crushed
shouldn't a sorry sucker like me
not trust anymore
but faith in humanity gets the better of me
and the bridge of a song hints at the promise of a change of words
a happier adjustment in the upcoming chorus
every **** time i wait like a puppy at the door
and my ears fall when it's just the mailman, right on time as always
the chorus is the same soul-gutting melody as before
and i fall asleep alone

church for the nonbeliever
sainthood for the irredeemable soul
i feel hands around my throat and breathe thanks to god
i feel fire in my belly and say his name like a chaser
my hands are raw with sins and holy water stings them like salt in an open wound
no longer the god-fearing seven year old in a white dress at his feet
i look to records for the religion i've lost
pray for sanity and forgiveness in the blank moments filled with music and nothing else
they have consumed me
i beg god for motivation and ambition so i can fulfill his image of me
but in his radio silence i wonder if he's finally done
if there is one sin too many,
one prayer too insincere
has he forgotten me as i have myself?
too many questions and not enough answers
so i get high and listen to songs about losing faith
and i sleep and wake up again
still wondering if
i have any faith at all, and
if i do then when my will deliverance come
in answered prayers and cups runneth-ing over
and ashes in a cross on my forehead
my mother says i'm no longer who i was
and i laugh and tell myself to bite my lip and swallow my tears
i know
a lost soul, a wandering and wondering little girl
that is who i am, who i was, and who i will die as
so i pour another shot and hope for the best in the end
god will come through
even if i don't know if i believe in him

we still have hearts shaped for each other
soft spots on our sore souls
my first love, my dearest friend, my worst goodbye
to be over you is to be dead, nonexistent
and i am so alive
in the friendship we struggle to build from the ashes of a desperate love
in the toeing the line
in the winter we spent entwined
i grew into a fire with you
and now i am cold and the sky is dull and i wish for your hand on my leg in the lazy part of the day
i love you still
my first
and i know your heart still beats in time with my fingers on the piano
i hear it from our great distance
and it lulls me to sleep on my loneliest nights
you are the aching in my chest and i hate it
you are the lightening of my stomach
you are the sorrow in my sorry heart
i don't need you but i'll be ****** if i don't want you
i miss you in the way i know you whisper my name when you're alone
in the way i know you reach for me even when your bed is half empty
in the way i know you realize how good i was to you, unbearably so
we are in love until the end
so let's go down in flames

pure and rare, full of rain
this is a heart after it has loved and lost
and it continues to beat
with adoration for life even now
twisted and strained and bloodied
and raw
you left your mark
like you said you would
but still this is a heart in love with living and loving
and it cannot be bested
conquered
ransacked
yet regal and poised
everything unloved
this is a heart that has made its home
from ruins and ashes
undefined but shaped by them
and more than them
built on betrayal and pain
full of love and power