Stop with these requests
And all your questions,
I need some suggestions here
On how to live and breathe
And make these thoughts
For once seem clear.
It's not unheard of
To be unsure of things
All the time, but this is
One rhyme I have to get right
While the words are still ripe.
The problem, friend, is I'm
Too short to reach the branches,
So if you'll please take your stances,
I'll take your hand and that one's
Knee, to pluck what measly
Words I can from my dying tree.
My rhythm's all wrong now,
And this isn't some song I can
Just rewrite, revise, then call
It a night. These words are my
Soul, these words are my
Whole world, you see, and
To be off time means I'm
Out of my prime, and I
Still have to rhyme to make money.

I keep these words behind glass
   in the fear that I might lose
   the ability to make them on my own.
I keep them in jars and frames
   and dust their letters clean
   each day that I awaken.
I keep repeating them,
   chanting the sounds to myself
   and to your sleeping ear.
I keep these words behind glass
   to remind myself of the words
   that I'm too scared to throw away.

Rearrange, re-estrange, re-derange.
Exchange the change you
Prearranged with something
Even stranger.
Interchange your long-range
Thoughts for something
Shorter, maybe don't be
Shortchanged this time around.

I keep the tears in my head just for the night.
It's past the hour to be sad and I might
Feel the urge to set them free another day.
So I seal them tight, quite tightly away,
Until the time returns again for salt
To run and burn my cheeks because
This bucket of mine has a lot of leaks.

I can't seem to patch them up well
Enough to hold the product of those sixty minutes,
So the bucket swells and overflows its lip.
It's why my thoughts tend to slip, I think,
The days too long for just one hour,
That time spills and becomes a scattered shower
Full of my ills and my unpleasant days.

Maybe you didn't put the stars up high
To make me hope to touch them.
Maybe you didn't make them shine
To turn this little planet dim.

But every day I hope to reach,
Every day I hope to see,
The stars loving you and
You loving me.

You're honest when you're drunk,
Forcing down a hunk of white bread and
Chugging water to keep it all down.
But the truth comes up and parades around town.
Teeth chew slowly while lips spew lonely truths
On counter and face and shoes.

You make a mess when you're drunk,
But it's so much cleaner, too.
Your anger is meaner and you say what you want,
You'll dare to leave but then you won't.
Stumble around and give me the words you found
While you drank your fears
And wiped those angry tears on my shirt.

You're younger when you're drunk,
Lines melt away and you come out to play.
You say what I didn't know I had to hear,
With no sign of fear that I might mind
Your unkind words and your babbling, bumbling mumbles.