That’s alright baby, tie me down to this familiar ground
Say you wanna grow a garden
In my old backyard, dig
Say you wanna be my man, all I got to do is forgive
It’s alright baby, ain’t nothin' new
I been hidin' under the same rocks you're throwin' for most my life
Cursed to carry a love like yours, I can’t be sorry
For the bruises on my hide
Better at drinkin' than forgivin', better at walkin' than your lovin',
Babe I can’t be sorry though I miss you still
I hear you been doin' well
Hear you’re runnin' fine
Put those strong hands to good use, quit throwin' pebbles at my house
You and me just can’t be friends
It’s alright, baby
It ain’t nothin' new
I’ve still got my pretty blue dresses, still got whiskey kisses
And I can’t be sorry no more, so
I’m gonna bury my thoughts of you, dig
My own **** garden

I live at the bottom of a lake
I am a fish
There are gills in my ears
‘Cause there are things my blood needs to hear
I have fins in my mouth and they propel me so far
The only way to stop is to bite down real hard
Sometimes I miss the air, even though I’ve never breathed
I drive around the lake bottom in my little moving machine
I call it a Notcar
I try to find my way to the other side
It’s blue out there or maybe grey

I died at the bottom of a lake today
I ran all out of imaginary air
I fell asleep at the wheel of my Notcar
And drove right into a telephone Notpole
My friends all gathered round my little fish-shaped grave and I learned something
They don’t tell you in books or movies,
That Dead speaks a different language than Alive
So I couldn’t understand a word my fishy friends said
It sounded like this:

I’d always hoped my death would have some meaning
Or that at least my life would
But mostly I just tried to understand things
Like all the different rooms in my brain and why underwater never smelled like rain
I loved a few boy fish, had some very fishy affairs
I loved my friends the most, they were such pretty colors
(Dead sees colors differently than Alive, so now they look like this:                                    )
The day I died was special like every other day which is to say
That it was not Notaverage
And I died in a pretty Notspecial way
And because I can’t hear Alivewords, or see Alivecolors
I’ll never be sure if I left any mark

I live at the bottom of a lake
Most days I think that I’m an alien
On Tuesdays I feel pretty human
The lake I live in died
It left behind little shells in the sand at the playground
And pretty rocks with ripples
It left rings on the mountains but not like rings inside trees
These rings mark a countdown to death, rather than a count out from birth

The lake is a ghost
It sings to me in my sleep, but I don’t speak Dead
At least not yet
And furthermore, I don’t speak lake
I speak a language called Notdeadnotlake
And so do all my friends
Sometimes I wonder why the ocean was so thirsty that it called my lake back home
And I wonder if I’m part of Something Bigger too,
Whether Something Bigger is feeling thirsty
I think I might be part of a big strange creature made out of all the things I sometimes feel like:
Lakesludge and matches and sunshine and fish with sharp little teeth
Notgoods and notbads and spiders and bats
Sadhappys and angryfucks
Starsparkles and earthworms and fairywings and dinosaur bones,
It has really big ears and stubby toes
And all it needs is some alien or Tuesdayhuman to feel complete
Or maybe it’s made of lakeghosts and fishghosts
And wants nothing to do with me

I’m always yelling at myself
For the things I took for granted
They said to save yourself
But I called them cowards
And threw it all ahead
Screaming, tomorrow will be better
Better
Much better
Every day that’s not today is destined for greatness
A steady decline in sadness
Until one day my tombstone will read
“EVERYTHING WAS BEAUTIFUL AND NOTHING HURT”
(That one’s Vonnegut, but I bet you knew that)

See, my flux capacitor’s broken
And I’ve been reading this **** backwards
I just want to go back

I used to be such a show off
Collecting my experiences just to line them up on shelves
Lists of proof of my own beauty
My bright future
Proof that I’ve been loved

Of all of my different selves
I like that one the least
But miss her the most

Now I try not to leave the house
And when my phone rings I get really anxious
Now I feel like I’m always fighting
But there’s nobody around
So I’m fighting with belt buckles and doorknobs
And I resent the people who make those things look easy
Now a part of me feels angry when my friends ask me out
They don’t understand
That’s not self pity
They’d understand if I told them
But that would require answering my phone
And I just can’t do that today

I know I’m being selfish
Self absorbed and petty
But my heart has finally ruptured
It couldn’t hold all of the empty promises I’ve filled it with
And I’m tired of fighting
Now all that my shelves hold
Are stacks of reasons why I want to go back to bed
And the only list I have
Is filled with concrete evidence
That tomorrow will not, in fact,
Be better
Not better
Because today is worse than yesterday

The first time you told me you loved me, I was drunk,
And I cried.
And then I was having a panic attack,
And my god ****** cigarette wasn't helping
And the air in my lungs was revolting.
The first time you told me that you loved me,
I couldn't say it back.
Not the second, the third, or the fourth.
I didn't say it the night that I told you you bring out the best in me,
Or the day after that, when I told you your dimples
Feel like the parenthesis around my own laugh.
I didn't tell you, even when you pointed up toward the full moon, just like the night we had met,
Or in the morning after that, when I woke up from nightmares about being thrown in jail
And found myself so grateful to have you next to me that when I rolled over to wrap myself around your still sleeping body, I almost whispered the words in your ear, just to give you a sweeter dream than mine.
The first time I thought it was when you first got out your guitar.
In that warmup chord, I saw what my body already knew your fingers could do.
And for some reason, it made me think about how you always put away your leftovers, how you ask me, little darlin, where was I going with that
Every **** time you tell a story, call me your steel trap.
While you played my favorite song without knowing, I thought about
How long we stood in the aisle weighing the pros and cons
Of toothbrushes
And how easily we laugh.
But still I can't say it, not yet, no matter how good you look in the yard, chopping wood.
We need more words for love because
I think maybe we see it differently.
If we were on the same page, you would never put forth something so easily
That could take us so far
And drop us so hard.
Because the love that I want between you and I
Is the kind that takes time
The kind that knows how to see in the dark, that forgives all of the embarrassing things.
Like maybe someday I'll show you my poetry.
I see the kind of love that has learned to navigate the world through four eyes
Like a spiderweb touching
The bark on our adjacent trees.
It requires you to forgive yourself the knowledge of me.
And that is not easy.
You joke, tell me you l-word me
Tell me that someday I'll learn how to love, just a joke, but
I don't know if you know it's not nice.
I do know love,
I know love like the backs of my teeth,
Like the way it ties strings across time and death and seas.
I know love like the way I have so many people in my life who give it to me for free
And I am so god ****** lucky that you feel it for me.
I know love in how much I want you
To be happy.
And yes, I know how to love between lovers,
But most of what I know is about how it goes away.
I remember how to fall out of love, so well,
How to lose myself in the swell
Of a dying tide.
I know
That for you I will dive back into that ocean
And that when I say those words, I will mean them, I will believe them.
And I know that I love myself far too much
To do anything but trust my own tongue because
Sometimes when you smile I feel like I've waited for you my whole life
So, on this, I can be patient.

******* silly
To think of you at all
To still feel a little sick
That's the problem with moving, you find all those things you hid from yourself
Pictures and love letters
The hate letters that followed
Over the years my memories of you have condensed into a tangle of feelings
Small, but heavy
Love and love and love
Summertime mornings white house blue trim rooftop wildflower bouquets
Atmosphere backyards sunshine is fine for making up
Naked in the lake, maps and
Sheets with ducks
Heartbreak and rage
So lonely
Never enough in the winter, cell phone turned off
Shame and humiliation, regret and guilt
Sick to my stomach
*****
All the things you've called me because of things I'd done before
And now after
You
Had no right
You wouldn't believe how long I've spent trying to cut your words out of my spine
The half-life of all that hurt and
The minefield of defenses you left littered around my heart
It's been three years since the three years that we spent together came to an end
One year since I got your final letter
It was the last goodbye between you and I
And for the most part I don't think of you anymore
I've forgotten far more than I remember about the feel of you
But every January 21st I still look up at the night sky and hear your voice
Telling me that winter stars are the brightest
I wonder if you think of me too
I hope you don't a little more than I hope you do
All the ways I felt about you, each truth making the last untrue
Are tangled in a tight little knot in the back of my mind
Shadows of words that hide in my spine
An unlabelled box in the garage
I couldn't bring myself to throw you away all the way
I hope I never see you again

Drunk on gin and conversation, I slept with someone else last night
But in his bed I had to fight your name from my lips,
To remember that I was here, with him and not there, with you
And he was not you
He smelled like cologne instead of coffee and smoke, but he was kind
And he was not you
In the morning he wrapped me in his arms and called me beautiful
And he was not you
In my mind I felt you next to me and while he slept, I remembered
All those times I laid my palm on your chest and felt your voice rise up through my fingertips
So that the things you said to me wrote themselves into my flesh, leaving me with no chance to forget all these pieces you’ve left behind
Take them back, please
You haunt my body like a ghost
I taste you in my sleep
Every inch of me remembers you, my thighs still think that they are tender
With the bruises from your hips
My heart still thinks that it is broken
You’ve become a whole list of songs I can no longer listen to, the early morning sadness I sleep late to avoid
You’ve become a name in my phone I will never call, a conversation in my head we will never have
You’re just a cold place in my bed
Just the thing that he was not
You are gone
And someday I will forget you, too

In theory the milky way
Adventure
A break from breathing in only history
From spitting up dust in my sleep
In theory --- simplicity
                  But I've gone and got myself
Committed
                     To seven feet of sky I
Walk the same gravel back and forth and back to bed
In this rhythm I've lost all the reasons why I ever came to this place
Pebbles in the river getting rounder
Smoother til they disappear
                                At least when they're gone they won't cut your hands
It's so quiet here in the canyon
It's an effort to breath
I have nightly conversations with the me inside my head
        I exist, she screams
Yes, but I need you to rest
        Everyone at home loves you, she wheedles, and at home, every day is different
Easy to say so far away
Besides, this is simple, you've never tried simple before
                        Puke in the drain, simple
                                  Highway with one headlight, simple
                                                   Last cigarette clutched in your fist, simple, it's broken but you needed a way to keep the smoke in
            I do all my best writing when I'm driving
But words scatter at every destination
My thoughts are butterflies frightened of being pinned down by the pen
            Frightened of being stuck here with me in this canyon
                                                          ­                    Stay neutral
                                                         ­                            Simple
                                                          ­                                   My mouth tries to smile while my voice makes small talk
My eyes aren't for smiling anymore
They're for looking at my feet, documenting each step that will someday lead me home
For if I look up, take in what's around or ahead, I won't be able to breath
                                                          ­                                          It's simple
Let it all roll through, It's not your job to hold it still
Besides, everyone knows all dams go down in the end
Up at dawn every day
But haven't seen a single sunrise simple
Drink my coffee like it's water
                              Because it's water
                              Simple
Maxed out credit card, so no **** pads
And no leaving either
Call home and cry on a park bench, duck ponds are simple
I think I must've misread the stars I think
I am a star
            Shaped me trying
                                 To fit into a square shaped hole
**** rodeos and
**** this poem
I wrote it while I was driving so it ran away to lie on top of a mountain in last year's summer and look at the milky way
Free
With all the parts of me that I don't need these days
Simple to be subdued down to fraction of me, do I fit in here yet? And if I do, can I recover from that?
                       And what would Tom say? Why be sweet why be simple why be kind, after all he's only
A man and we all know a man
Has only one thing on his mind
But then again he
                           Would never trust a girl crying next to ducks
Never mind, this is just another travelin' song my thoughts are a travelin' on
I'm left with stolen lyrics from Waits and Oberst but only seven feet of quiet sky to sing them in
I am here with my sleeping heart and aching back while my thoughts are off
Rambling on and on and on

I write such pretty words
About the ones I've sort of loved
I used to think I'd be like Joni Mitchell
And love all the beautiful men
With their beautiful voices
And their beautiful souls
I've gotta get me a singer in the park, dancer in the dark
A ***** word thief to mirror my own heart
Funny how life goes exactly how you don't plan it
Or if you were prepared for that
It will go according to plan but taste like splenda
Sticky, fakesweet
Me, I'm riding steady on the latter
Sometimes getting sadder
And barring that time when I was sixteen
All the loving never felt like love
Not all the way
I don't mean to degrade those salty days
I've got a headful of memories that I'd never trade
I don't know what I'm thinking when I say the love I make could be better
Maybe because I've never been made stupid, never really been played
Which is to say that I've never actually gone all the way
Never settled or sacrificed anything I couldn't get back
Most of me is always tucked away
Escaping only in blinding bursts that leave everyone involved a little scared
I don't remember how to temper myself
In relation to anyone else
But I remember every time I've realized that something wasn't what I wanted
I'm **** good at falling out of it
And writing lots of stupid poems about it
I've watched too many people rip each other apart with it
Felt it start to rip at me
Of course I'll never let that happen
I'm the first to advocate divorce
But some days I get really worried that I'm not capable of anything more
It's not that I'm broken
I just have really,
Really
Good boundaries
Maybe I'm lying, scared and selfish
Going against my own mind
I know I've felt bliss
Once I felt infinite
But that was a different me, all soft and made of clay
This me, pushing out these particular words, well
I've never been in love
I'm always a little bit in love

That sparkle,
that immeasurably forgiving joy and affection is gone,
but the sound of your voice is just familiar enough to make me remember it.

What we're doing here is necrophilia.
It's gross, but we're ******* something that's dead and we both know it.
I think we thought we could bring it back to life with our selfish demands,
but this coffin isn't as comforting as we'd hoped it would be.

We've never talked about the time between,
that period of time when we never talked.
We should have talked.
Without words, you had nowhere to be angry so you swallowed your truths and they turned into blame.

I can feel it when you look at me,
I don't sparkle anymore.
Well, neither do you.

When we talk we say the least, yet every word has a barb.
Too jaded for affection we bob and weave through a minefield of unacknowledged truths.
Our words rot in our bellies while we sew each others mouths shut.
We never wanted this sort of intimacy.

We let the poison out with play, the kind that's done with knives.
So here we are, playing with knives in a minefield,
the only sound is our own hollow laughter.

Behind every "never mind" and "just kidding",
behind the scoreboard of our interactions and every slap of my *** are two shadows;
one covered in armor from breast to backbone,
and one purging a river of poison.

We're chasing a past we know we can't have back,
and the echoes of our old feelings make the silence so much louder than it was
when we didn't talk.

We were beautiful this summer, helplessly alive.
We had such good intentions but the silence and the miles and the fear have made this thing pale,
dead looking.

We try hard to be sorry.

Every kindness hurts because it tastes like the past,
so now instead we barter in bed.
Turns out *** without affection falls under Services Rendered,
but the shape of you so near to me makes me miss you more than I can bare and if you call me tonight, I'll probably answer.  

I guess sometimes the only way to make sure something's not still alive is to poke it with a stick a few times.

We talk about change in a series of theories
But you can't just look at your lawn
And tell it to grow into a garden
You have to understand your soil, what it has to offer and what it needs
You have to know your seeds and how they grow
And you can't look at the wounds of the broken and tell them to heal
Like you have the solution
Like there's something to know
Grief isn't looking for answers
It's looking for hope
Respect
You gotta know your history
So take a moment of silence to remember what you already know
And if you have knowledge share it but know that your questions are worth more than your answers
Our language shapes our thoughts and our thoughts shape our world
The distance between us and who we want to be is paved with apathy and greed
It's where the parasites breed
What is it that moves through you?
Because everything, every touch, every hurt, every fear, every word is true simply because it exists
You exist
Our verse carries the power of of the universe but I can't help but feel that we're doing it wrong
That too many of our words serve mainly to mislead
So take care which of the two wolves that you feed
We have a choice in how we use our voice and as for me
I am not the language on my lips, my tongue is native only to my love
I speak in syllable and sound
I have my ear to the ground
This earth is my church
Sometimes I am quiet and reverent, listening
Others I am barefoot running shouting,
Touching all the art
You'll find me praying on a mountain, kneeling in the dirt
Everywhere that I go
I am home
The more I seek, the less I know
The more I question, the more I grow
When I look up for too long, I start to itch
How can I stare into the face of infinity and not feel free?
I don't know where I found these pieces of truth that I hold
But it sure as hell wasn't by being told
So get out of that classroom for a while
This life isn't about proving that there are things that you know
That ****'s not noble
Arbitrary struggles in hopes of some uncertain future
Won't feed your soul
Stop looking for answers to fill all those holes
Carved by the fear of spinning out of control
Our people are devolving into white knuckles, short-sighted stomach knots
Dizzy and sick, so let go
Let the light shine through you and if it burns know that sometimes that's what it means to be true
We are here and that is precious
You are precious
So spin
Spin with me to the music of syllable and sound
Syllable and sound

The distance between what we say and what we mean
The difference between what I need you to hear
And what you hear when I speak
Between what you need and what you say

That's the place where it hurts
That's the place where love turns into poison
And weapons

It should be so simple because I'm your little girl and you're my Dad
Who took me for walks on railroad tracks
And let me bring home every rock that I thought was special
You filled your pockets with them, you never told me they were just quartz
You read me stories and had a pickup truck named Betsy
Who couldn't drive past an ice cream shop without stopping because she was special too
You took me camping and swimming and hiking
(I canoe, canoe canoe?)
And played the Grateful Dead
You were so good at being a Dad

I remember you sitting me down and telling me that I'd always be your number one
That you would love me no matter what I did
I was just a kid
And I believed

But I grew up
And you got older and scareder and sadder
Things got a lot harder

I stopped being little, stopped being a piece of you
That must have hurt
Because you forgot your promise
You built a world of expectations and as it grew
So did the distance between you, and the good in you
You can be so mean
And the worst part is that I feel guilty for being mad at you
Because I know that you're just scared
Really really scared
I understand
I do

It's terrifying to love things that are not you
What if they leave?
What if they hurt you?
What if they don't love you enough?
Or the way that you want them to?
It's hard to have faith
Especially if you're not used to faith being had in you
But can't you see how much weight your fears put on me?

I wish you had faith in me
I wish you saw my good intentions
And respected me for my strengths
I wish I could be who I am around you
I am smart and opinionated and unafraid
I think critically and see the best in people
But those are the things in me that you seem to hate
I never thought it could hurt so much to feel disliked

It brings out the worst in me

So I hide
Because it is impossible to take care of both of us at the same time
If I take care of myself, it hurts you
If I take care of you, it hurts me

When we talk you ask me about money
And school
And money
And my future plans
And money
Have I called the dentist?
Done my taxes?
Applied for scholarships?

None of those things have any bearing on me

We haven't talked for months
I'm not going to call you and say that I'm sorry
I'm so sorry, but not for the reasons you think I should be
I'm sorry we can't just talk
I'm sorry it's hard for us to be around each other
I'm sorry we resent each other
I'm sorry that I miss you so much, but am so afraid to talk to you
I don't want to be scared of you
I'm sorry that there is a room in my head that holds memories of you lashing out at me
I just want you to remember that you love me
If you could remember that and let go of everything else
I would call

That's a promise

Sleep deprived
Deranged just a little touch/just a little
Tip
Crack your
Knuckles work your bones
All around this town is shaking
Shiver/moan
All the ways we get horizontal
We get up to
Get down, always a little off
Always a half-second early, drop
Let it all fall off
Devolve your way to the light, little moth
We're so god ****** enlightened here
But you've got a long ways to go, always
Stagger long my wayward friend
Lots of beds but
None that feel like home
We get weird but
It ain't so strange
Tie your hair up in tangles like you've been had on the ground
Alley dirt on your ***
Dance your way to the front
Alternate between confident and terrified/cigarettes naked fall
Asleep alone
On some weird couch
While your best friend
***** your ex in another house
Forgivable, forgivable
Can't be mad at the poet/drunk but it's okay just breathe
Your way to the next day sit and look at pictures be jealous
Of the you you used to be
Shower like you're poison
Fill your car and
Head South Head South Head South

When I was twenty one, I thought I'd probably find The One
I used to have a pretty good look, I walked around on stilts
I walked around like clouds
And saw people as rays of light
And then at twenty two I walked home alone in the dark
And I got lost after the bars
Got lost between the cars
So I just kept trying to leave like in a dream
I kept punching things, but my arms were too weak
To do anything but caress
And it was my funniest joke, the way I hid from the sun
I didn't like the way it let the world see so much
But in the dark things kept on falling apart
I had all sorts of cuts on my hands
And then one night at the bar I was screaming
I'm a ******* unicorn
Because I thought no one was listening
And in the dark, at the bar, in the cold and the smoke
Tainted water
I rested my head on your collarbone

I’m not going to write a song
About my deep dark feelings
‘Cause I can’t sing
And I’m not going to write a poem
About the sun in summer
Or flowers in the spring
In fact, I hate the word “flower”
It is candy hearts for sheep
I like the word “fervor”
Like, I fervently wish to dig my fingernails into the flesh of your back while you **** me into a fever with a fervor like a rabid dog.
That’s a pretty good word
Not too ugly or sweet
I like to write about hurt
All sorts of things hurt
Like the glass that digs into the soles of my feet
Making me so angry when I walk the ten steps that lead me back to me
From the five that lead to who I want to be
It is a sedated state of suffering
All at the hands of anyone but me
And contrary to contemporary belief
This kind of broken really isn’t pretty
So I want to write a song about all the lovely things I’ve seen
How beautiful some of my days have been
If you were here I’d pay someone pretty to sing this song and
If we still talked I’d get up on stage and read this poem
I’d make you blush in the audience
While I told the whole bar about
The way you taste in the middle of summer
How I’ve always liked salty better than sweet
And how every night you looked me in my eyes the whole time you moved inside
I’d steal the clichés from all the love stories you’ve come to hate
Just to watch you cringe in your seat
But I’ve always liked ****** better than trite
And all I can ever seem make this god ****** pen write
Are words about fear and ******* and flesh
And how much they all hurt me

I don't take up a lot of space
I am only a little bag of my own histories
White cloth tied with thin red strings
My little bag, full of my little things
All around are a thousand different stories
And the world, it is a very big place

Sometimes the ***** of my driveway is enough
To keep me locked up tight at home
My promises are mostly empty, mostly drunk
And later I plead sick or stuck or broken
Because loving things is hard
Each new time is like the last
An equation I cannot break or match
Whiskey spilled makes common ground
And everyone here is going to be sorry
Because loving things is hard

But it’s nice to be in love, it’s
Peaches in the summertime,
Apples in the fall
Sometimes I miss it all
Because it was all so god ******  nice
It was nice in his kitchen making coffee while he showered
And laughing wet-hair kisses in the bedroom
It was nice on the futon by the wood stove
Reading books while he was off in some basement playing music
And making love when he came home
Nice when played Birmingham, nice how he was shy
Nice too, when he played Shady Grove and I thought my heart would die
From the way he’d taken something that had been his before, and mine before
And hung it up in the air between us like it could be ours
Now that air is gone
And I never sing that song

Yes, it was nice, very nice, to be in love
But it is good, very good, to be free
Because I have places to go, and loving things is hard
I don’t like the way it pulls on all my strings, dragging them out of me,
Tying their ends to beds and tables and chairs,
Running them through guitars,
So that it hurts to leave
And the stroke of some nice man’s fingers can send vibrations all through me,
Touching everything
I don’t like the way I become more who I am with him
Than who I am with everything and everyone else, who I am by myself
It is nice to make coffee and love and songs
But it is good to be free,
Because loving things is hard

I got home
and the rooms were all spinning
across the street
two bucks were sparring in my neighbor's yard
while a third stood by
it was three in the morning
so I walked closer
closer
closer
and we were eye to eye
the longest eye contact I've had in months
it was uncomfortable
he could have gored me
and I could have shot him
in theory
in theory
I'm sorry
so sorry

Things have been strange lately
Devoid of feelings
I've been staying home more and
Eating lots of greens
Keeping my room clean

The other day I broke my ***
Fell down alone in the mountains
Now I've got a bruise like a galaxy
It would have been funny
If I'd had anyone with me

Sometimes I go out and talk
To boys in bars
They bore the hell out of me

I drink whiskey and practice my pretend smile
Excuse myself for cigarettes
That I don't smoke anymore

Where'd all my hell go?
I'm all balance and competence
Sunrise after sunrise
I ponder my insipid demise

It's been weeks since I've kissed or spit or sweat
Good god I'm bored
I'd love to meet someone who contradicts themselves
Half as much as me

Is this it? Is this what I want?
I confuse myself
Sometimes all I want is to be ****** up
On fire
Cracking knuckles and shedding clothes
Never satisfied with anyone around me
Never satisfied with me
Filling all my wounds with salt
Watching myself bleed

I can be so broken
I can be so whole
I can do it all by myself

In my dreams I break the teeth out of my own mouth and then pray to go back
Back to the way it was before I went and broke my own back
My mind is a bull and my skull is fine china
Someday I’ll break
Break my way out
Til then I shake with no medicine
No holes to let the light in
My brothers are busy pretending to be soldiers
They don’t know that there’s no war
Just an endless realm of night terrors
That somebody told them were borders
My body went outside today and everyone I met asked it how I felt
So I lit their hair on fire
And woke up tied to my bed with all my teeth still tied to my head
In the part of time that isn’t dream
I’m obsessed with being clean
I wash my bones with salt water
And try hard to believe in a god
But mostly I just get sad about my past
I want the lilacs back
I want it to be someone else's fault
These waking hours are made of mica
They are shiny but
The pieces are always peeling off
From beneath all the buildings on my street
It’s happening so slowly
So slowly that we’ll all be dead by the time we get wise
When I’m young again I’ll learn to speak
I’ll tell the sky what it’s like to be a soul stuck inside a head
And I’ll ask my future what it’s like to be dead
I’ll tell the sun about dreaming
I think it would be hard to be always awake
I’ll ask these new gods where all the old gods went
And could I maybe talk to one of them?
How did my people wind up worshiping clocks?
I’ll keep asking questions until time turns around
She’ll pull my hair and kick my shins
‘Cause that’s what sisters do
I’ll just be thankful that she noticed me at all
Someday I’ll get tired of asking so many questions
And I’ll quit having such tiresome dreams
I’ll lay down tasty
Flesh is food for hungry ground
Someday I’ll figure out how to be awake when I’m not asleep
I’ll tell myself all the secrets I’ve been trying to keep
But I’m really only good at speaking in my sleep

I am evening's alpine glow, drawing you out west across the canyon
I am the stranger who comes to you in dreams even though
They say you can only dream of things you know
I am
A brass bowl of your hopes
No more than some faraway notion
I taste of the ocean
I am the beat of your future heart
Barking at the moon, a little fool, a little sad, but
You're the one who dreamt me up on some lonely summer's day
And I am
The grass you laid upon that day
I make you itch
And I am
The stones that bruised your feet as you walked the river's edge
You thought that you were ready
I make you ache
But when this year comes to an end, too
I'll be
The dust you shake from your winter clothes
The spider you find hiding in your sheets
And the scrap of paper you use to set it free
I am the perfect lover you will probably never meet
The secret you could never know or keep
And all you can do is watch for me in your sleep
And all you can do is wait
Or not wait
For me in all the quiet places
And don't forget your dreams in daytime

My favorite word is flesh, my favorite word is fear
My favorite days are the ones when I feel like I am here
My favorite feeling is lonely, favorite subject is love
I'm a sad little poet
In a sad little world
Where everything's nostalgic and everything is trite
I never believe a single word that I write
And neither, dear,
Should you

No, I haven't failed to recognize the correlation between working more and making rent
Between saving more and living less
And how if I suffer now then I won't suffer later, right?
Is that a guarantee?
And where do I sign up for the white picket protection from anything bad that could possibly happen to me?
Which broke down fool lead you to believe
That safe is interchangeable with happy
Or that valid is saved only for value
As in
Your car is decreasing in value with each mile and
Your right to drive is only valid if you've got the funds to back it up
So stay home
Save your miles and your luck
Because expense weighs more than experience
And if I'm not careful I'll turn out just like my mother
See you
Underestimate the value of words
You told me only dead writers get paid but
I'll never forget yours
I see them in the hard lines
That place on your face where I've heard some people keep smiles
And I'm sorry
I'm sorry you listened to whoever told you these things
If I could fix you, I would
I would make you deaf to the fear that you channel in through the ear and out through the mouth
But I can't so
Here's how I'll save you
You listened
I won't

His sister Culo
Had it much worse than he
He, blind and bound
By cool moist earth walls
Wriggled
With such downward mobility
Only to flower backwards
To watch as his legs rose higher
Until they pierced the surface of the world
And his toes became weeds
And his head became a potato.

You’ll give me time
And I’ll give you ghosts
We’ll draw each other blueprints
Mapping out every escape route
You deal in ideas and
I deal in letters
In unfulfilled promises, stolen art
What could have beens and prose
At first my words are beautiful
So you’ll give me a heart
In return, I’ll give you a poem about a heart
You’ll give me affection
I’ll take your kisses and your smiles
I’ll take your mornings and your cigarettes and your compliments
And I’ll love you so much
That I’ll write you into my story
I’ll give you your space
I’ll give you my ears, my blind eye
If you want to bury your head, baby I’ll be your sand
After all, we were both just looking for a safe place to land
You’ll give me your heart
Over and over and over again
But I’ll always want more
I’ll always want you to understand
That the thing you love is just a piece
That I am a thousand times the things you think I think I can be
That I love everything a little
But will never settle
On any one path
I want to follow you everywhere
Just to prove to you that I can be everywhere
Do everything
And you’ll get tired of that
I want to be everything you’re not
Just to prove that I still exist outside of us
You’ll get sick of trying so hard to figure me out
Just when you’re ready to leave I’ll decide to show you everything
Things will be good again for a few days
But then we’ll start saying sorry again
We’ll give and give and give
But every gift will be a size to small
The wrong color
So close to right that we’ll walk around with blistered feet and smiles too tight
Loving each other in clashing colors
It won’t be long before we start to miss each other whenever we’re near each other
It won’t be long before it hurts more than we’ve decided it’s worth, but still
I’ll probably always miss you a little

All the things that we laughed about
And the plans that we made
I don't remember them at all
And it doesn't hurt

Your love will trickle down
Through all the things you love a little more
While I lie here on the ground
And beg the sky for rain

Every picture I draw
Is a picture of you
And the lines on your face
Are the lines on my face

It's not right
This last rite

But quiet now, It's starting

BANG
BANG
BANG

Let the sheep speak

On trial for his complacency, he tries to say
"I'm sorry"
"Everything I ever did, I only did halfway"

There was no mercy from the jury
After all, what good is kindness to dust?
He is no longer eligible for beginners luck

The trick isn't luck, it's sticking to your guns
But her gun is made of clay
And it's attached at the end of her leg

So now everywhere that she walked
And everything that she touched
Little holes were left
And filled up with dust

The strings of her heart are woven through his fingers and when she's sad, she leans back, lets the feeling of falling remind her that she's alive
And even though it only hurts
And even though it makes her want to die
She leans
Most of the time he leaves the strings slack, he's curled up inside himself
Inside all the tangles of his mind and that time he almost died
But when he feels strong, he gives a pull just to remind her that he's alive
Just a little tug to keep her on the ride

She bites, and it ******* stings
She slaps and lashes and apologizes night after night after
Night, and in the morning she is terrified
Because she knows that her strings are made out of knives
Because she knows what happens when you remove the blade, she's seen the blood on the tile
Seen the blood in his eyes
His strings are invisible
So she never knows what he wants
All ******* in him, he jerks and twitches, his strings are taut in the throes of invisible tides
So it looks like she's possessed on the other end of his lines
They're both so sorry
So much of the time

I am just a tangle of strings
Not particularly tied to anything
I ponder my knots with sticky fingers waiting
For the day when I decide to rip myself apart all over someone else
Just like all my friends

Today, we do not have a panic attack,
Because we've learned how to sit, how to breathe.
Today, we walk on the shore of the vastness of humanity.
With our eyes, we drink up the sea.
In yellow kitchens we sip wine with our grandmothers,
Toast to safe travels and the soft passing of time.
Today, we are not tied to anything but the beat of our own hearts,
We owe this world no debts
And we have no excuses left to hide behind.
By now, we've learned to pray to the trees,
The moon,
And the sea.
Tonight, we pray that we might sleep.

In an old box, she found a shell.
It was delicate, sweet pink, with spines spiraling to a cream-colored point.
The shell felt weightless in her hand.
She held it to her ear with dreams of the ocean crashing through her head;
the smell of salted wood and ***** long dead,
proof that everything will die and live and die again
until all the world is made of sand.
She expected the sound to call her home, instead,
the shell held only a thin whine,
like the sound of the tank above a toilet refilling
after the bowl has been flushed.

How old is the whale?
Older than the lines on your grandmother's hands
And how old is my heart?
Older than all the roots that hold down the dirt
That makes up this mountain
That harbors your heart
How old are the stars?
Where do I end?
And they begin?
The stars are older than words know how to be
And the light from every star that you see
Has traveled more miles and years than there are seeds in the ground
Than there are leaves in the trees
Or specks of dirt on your feet
Just to sparkle in your eyes here tonight
And those dark spaces in between the stars
Are just the places that the light has not yet reached

Late one night between the streets
I met the man you don't want to meet
He had a smile and a backpack
Coming from nowhere with nowhere to go
At first I was afraid
There was no light in his eyes
But his voice was so hopeful
He was the loneliest man I'd ever met
They say we're all lonely here
That we all go out alone
And in the space between the words we know that death will ease our pain
But he was There, still thinking he was Here
He was looking for someone to take him home
Or some whiskey to warm his bones
He needed a touch to kickstart his heart
In the dark he told me I had a light that shone down the night
And smiled the saddest smile I'd ever seen
I wanted to give him everything
But you can't hold on to smoke
Or give gifts to the dust