I just want to delicately cull my favorite blossoms from your mind
Until I've traveled the neural networks so,
That you might later allow my feral traipsing.
I just want to throw our backpacks in the backseat
And take a careless adventure
Wild. Jovial. Unbridled.
I just want to take you out from this fencing
To see you in new surroundings once more
To abandon labels, structure, and facades.
I just want to admire your strengths and your work
That you have shaped with your hands,
your will,
your individual cut.
I just want to take you out
To the open road
To see what you would shout,
how reckless you would be,
what abandon you could inspire in me.
I just want to do human things with you.
I want to enjoy pure moments of our nature.
I want to feel the Earth move with you.

The birds residing in my heart
Did beat their wings with such force
There was nothing but the beating
So many beats all out of sync
Throbbing. Thumping. Racing.
Finally, I opened my mouth
And one by one they each did fly out
and soar
and my heart grew lighter.
After many hours,
one by one they returned to roost,
folded their wings, and tired,
tucked back into my heart.
A mass of gently moving feathered bodies
Whirring with a soft, electric hum.

I close my eyes
to try to make it as dark as I can
to shut out the light from the hall
from the street lamp
from my alarm.
To make it as dark as the sky
that we lay beneath.
I re-populate the darkness with the pinpricks we know so well.
Would you give me permission
to do more than imagine,
to accompany you out to the open dark
of the plains and the mountain tops,
if only to spend the hours it takes to get there,
voices alight,
learning your favorite things,
and then hours under the stars
in awestruck silence?
Excited breathing. Buzzing. Elation.
A late and innocent night
on the edge of dawn.
I open my eyes
To the headache of the hall light,
the street lamp,
my blinking alarm.

It’s 6:08 AM
and 6 degrees Fahrenheit outside.
My window sweats on the inside and
a truck motor runs on the street for ten minutes
working to defrost its inner cargo.
The frosty hills are still dark as hell.
Somewhere hours away you’re waking up
choking for coffee and running off
moved by the efficient early metro buses,
the graying slush,
and the misty chandelier of streetlamps.
Maybe next winter you’ll be here
to coax me to put down the books
before the too-long awaited dawn.

Until then,
Good morning.
Goodnight.

Let's breathe.
Let's place our feet in the mud
and count the birds' songs without numbers
but with our souls
Let's let the branches speak to us,
the moon flood our skin,
the sun flood the land,
the flood chisel the river,
the bed grow to include us
Let's see life so precious circumnavigating
pushing on differently a little changed
Soon we succumb to the same
So laugh with a grim love and peace
that you come from the sun
sister the moon
become the mud
and the branch
that the circadian chatter of birds
will serenade
as we breathe.

HEAR THE COMPLETED SONG HERE:
https://soundcloud.com/nataliejcopeland/you-said*

You said, “Why’d you fold my clothes?
I don’t want anyone
taking care of me.”
You turned back to your razor,
ignoring
the sick-stained sheets.

You said, “Let’s just watch tv.
I don’t know anyone
when I’m asleep.”
You turned back to the wall,
ignoring
the two empty feet.

But that wasn’t where
the worst
pain
was felt,
Cuz I didn’t think
that my warm
heart
could melt
All the icy hands
That her cold heart
had dealt.
But then you said,
“That’s all broken.”
And you said,
“That’s all dead.”

You said “I can’t love again.
I don’t want anyone
wrapped up in my fate.”
Well, we turned back to our peaches,
ignoring
how we knew I would wait.

They said, “Is that your pretty girlfriend?”
And you said, “She’s so pretty…”
And that was the end
Cuz we turned back into clowns,
ignoring
the message we sent.

If you wanna know
the worst
pain
I felt
It’s when I lost hope that
my warm
heart
could melt…
Cuz the final blow
that cracked my world
was dealt
When you said…
When you said..
When you said…
When you said…
…. Nothing.

You said, “I’ll still be your friend
When he comes sweepin’ you
offa your feet.”
You put out your cigarette,
ignoring
my tears on the street.