Half way up the hills
and eclectic group gather
at a narrow bar.

Leather jackets
occupy seats
by the door.

We sit
for a cigarette length of time
(cigarette length of time =
   1 x 10 minutes
            + ≥ 10 minutes before
                   and/or after cigarette)
and walk
the dimly lit corridor
to the bar.

We sit
at a table for two
against a wall.

The band plays fiercely.
I've seen them before.

Their moxie
always brings
a rowdy crowd.

Behind them
apple crates
cling to the wall,
housing quirky decor.
Books, globes and vintage cameras.

A projector casts
lollipop swirls
and a singing silhouette.

Drink specials:
tequila mockingbird

I spoke to a Serbian girl I know.
She always wears glitter
and hazy eyes.
The more questions
I ask her
the longer I can listen
to her accent.

We spoke about the age old
nature vs nurture enigma,
and the life long impact
of a child's first six years.

She asked me
about my art.

It seems
that's all anyone
knows me for.

Outside, again, we sit.
For 5 x cigarette length of time.

Around me
people talk...
                 and talk.....
                               talk....
                                       ta...
                                             l...
                                                 k.

I'm sober.
Too **** sober.

My daydreams are broken
by a man.
He's bubbly and smiles a lot.
I like bubbly, smiley strangers.

We exchange stories
of our current lives.
He's a graphic designer,
and tells me
I should merge my art
and writing
into film,
and gifts me a flashlight.

I like quirky, bubbly, smiley strangers.

I'm left to retreat
back into my own thoughts.
It's less lonely in there.

I sort through memories,
recite lyrics,
observe the people around me
and watch them closely.
Their body language,
the way they bring
their glass to their mouth
and blow their smoke.

People interest me most
doing nothing in particular.

But I miss something,
and I can't quite pinpoint what.

I'm sober.
             Too.
                 ****.
                         Sober.

Pour me a drink,
A scotch with a gin,
I need to think,
Of life and dreams,

Pour me a drink,
Shot after another,
Don't ask me of my being,
Tomorrow I'll put myself together,

Pour me  a drink,
I wanna bask in a perfect sin,
Fix me something right,
And Lemme drink all night,

Pour me a drink,
I'm but a stranger to your eyes,
I have friends to turn to but,
I don't want to drown them with my demise,

Pour me a drink,
Oh, lemme feel my heart pound,
I have a friend coming for me,
So keep em coming til I can see sounds,

I don't understand why we're all so young and afraid of getting hurt.
Like **** that fam, we're resilient, we'll heal.
I have no doubt about it- because I've survived so much more than I thought I possible.
You see to me, a young heartbreak is an irrisitible temptation.
Almost as tempting as kissing your lips when you lie next to me,
at night,
smelling of cheap cigarettes and *****.
During the afternoon, when the sun floods my room the way your presence floods into the essence of my being- with no remorse.  
During the times we've choosen not to tell anyone about,
because we're just friends.

I'm not about this thing of loving people with half my heart though -which is why being your friend feels like torture.
You see, I cant love anyone with half my heart,
take the whole danm thing and break it.

Please, I beg this much of you,
because I can handle it,
I can handle so much more than you give me credit for.
I can handle the curve of your naked back
and I know this, not because you've given me the chance to do so,
but because I can handle you when you're fully clothed yelling at me.
And its like you yell louder with each fight, because there's an undercurrent in your voice I've come to recognize as fear,
because I've begun to get too close
and even though you seem strong you're probably more fragile than the bottle of gin that chills on your desk that you emptied a week ago during our last fight.
And it's like you yell louder with each fight because you can't understand why I haven't left yet and in truth I can't understand it either.
I can't articulate it properly but I have a feeling it has to do with the way that you begged me not to leave once,
begged me to stay at 3AM.
Begged me in the most raw way-
I think it was birthed then, my desire not to leave.

See my friend,
I've come to understand your silence more than your words
because you are so ******* choosy when it comes to your words,
and so calculated in your actions,
that your silence speaks to me the loudest.
Your yelling doesn't scare me anymore and neither does your silence.

You were silent that night after our last fight you know,
once you'd calmed down and collapsed into the bed next to me.
You were silent as you pulled me closer,
silent when you choked back tears that night that you thought I didn't see.
I can handle it,
I can handle you
the bird sang to the hurricane.

You see, your silence speaks to me right?
and in your silence you've already left finger prints on my heart ,
so why leave my body untouched?

So I won't be silent around you like I normally am, hear me now babe- take my heart and break it,
break it without fear,
because I don't expect you not to.
What I do expect is for you to understand the fact that I can handle heartbreak
because I'm volunteering myself for the renewal which will come in your wake.

I anticipate you littering your love on the landscape of my heart.
I anticipate the death of our love at your hands,
because I was dead to the idea of loving again before you,
I closed my eyes when I noticed that you'd resurrected empires in the darkest parts of me.
I closed my eyes when you started to breathe life into my brokenness.
I closed my eyes when you started to plant flowers in the rough terrain left by those before you.
I closed my eyes to all your love because you speak to me in ways that I don't quite understand
and have satisfied me in ways I didn't know I craved.

And I crave you in your absence,
not the flesh that you've withheld from me- not for a second.
No,
rather your naked spirit.
Snippets of which you've revealed in moments that you're too drunk to remember.
I crave the love that you're too scared to show me.
Show me your scars
and I'll show you the gruesome ones I've gotten from people I've long since forgotten.
Show me your nature
the winter howled to the heart of summer.

Because you see my love I can't live in fear,
I cant live for the "if only"'s
because they will devour me in a way far more vicious than your love ever could.

So come my love,
come before the Summer ends.
Come teach me a new language of love that only you and I will understand.
Come teach me a new dialect that will die with you and I alone.
Come teach me your ways...
the light whispered to the darkness.

Do me this one favour, destroy me for my art.
Be the hurricane that we both know you are.

And in return I'll do you a favour,
I'll be wildfire,
I'll be a tornado,
I'll be a tsunami,
I'll be a natural disaster,
And my love will speak to you in a way that only you could understand.

She's looking in the mirror,
Getting ready to hit the club,
Smokey eyes on point,
She's just trying to let go
Of what she keeps inside.

Prettier than her surroundings,
But still lists her flaws upon her soul,
If only she knew,
That the sun battles the moon,
To see her first.

So bright, so great,
Her smile lights up the sky.

Everyday her spirit fights,
A battle she knows well,
Fearing to grasp,
The reaching hand.

A soul so pure,
You can see it clear,
While she's looking in the mirror.

I could only look at you as another crack in the dam of my morality
A wave of feelings meant to untangle and unwind my heart and make it feel something sweet
It wasn’t your fault you didn’t know it was soaked and flooded with sin
I go home plenty nights with my clothes soaked in beer and my teeth in nicotine
The teeth that keep cracking in my dreams of insecurity
Cracking and falling fences keeping me in falling
Through a ******* blowing wind
And in this scene
all I see are the silhouettes of my regret
In every life-giving breath provided by a cigarette
I could walk for days away from you
I would walk straight into a fire, flood, or plague
Rather than feel what I did again
Madness is a sea of caring for someone like you
I can’t be bothered to be eclipsed by care again

I change faces like I change shoes
Trying people on for size to temporarily fill the glass of emptiness that is my heart
Its been dropped and chipped and put back together but why would you choose mine over a fresh, clean new glass
I don’t blame you
I know you see the turmoil I would cause you right on my face
And I feel bad for the others who haven’t been able to see it so clearly
I don’t mean to hurt anyone but maybe I do

I tried to drown you from
my thoughts last night.
Me, and a bottle of gin.
I do this every night
until the taste of your love
no longer lingers on my tongue.
I keep doing this.
I keep failing.
And every morning,
You learn to swim.

As I watch the sun go down over the pines.
I can't help but think how home smells like gin.
And how there's a certain irony to that.
How I want to drown myself in it.
And forget I ever left.

I look up to a pale blue sky
With apologetic eyes
And a heart so very filled
With dim.
Take me back
To the empty box I was
Before I began feeding myself
Gin and jokes of grim.
God, please wash me off my sin,
Or take this foolish thick layer
Of skin.


-- Eleanor

To the girl sitting at the bar -
surrounded by bodies, but you're still alone -
please see the beauty they'll see
before they ever ask for your name.
Your smile is addictive
like this liquid courage
that frees our inhibitions,
and lets a rat sing poetry
to a hummingbird.

They don't care,
but I'm sure that you don't either.
But a face that pretty
with eyes as clear as your
gin and tonic,
and their intentions,
does not deserve
the ol' college
Walk of Shame.

The damndest thing
is that at the end of the night,
all you want is for someone to notice you,
to treat you like
how the music makes you feel.

I would buy a drink and your time,
I would point out the way
you grab your earlobe when you feel

isolated

But this game wasn't meant for me,
and I've heard that you want a player.

Sweetheart,
they all notice you.
The more you wear,
the less approachable you are.
So I ask:
Please see what they'll see
before they ever know your name.