I've been close enough
To see the rocks break
Under me.
And fall into the sea,
Scraping every branch
On the way down.
There's still lead on my lips
And blood on my clothes.

I'll check into the hotel
And leave my bags at the front desk
While I sit over the sink
And watch the cold water
Run down my hands.
Spewing out my fingers
Like a superpower.

And when the magic fades
I'll break all the china
To make sure they still make sound.

I'll try to checkout.
I want to checkout.
But before I do,
A movie I've never seen
Shows up on the TV
And I decide to stay awhile.

Leave those New York blues behind
Forget the Chelsea Hotel
Living in LA's a lot like Heaven
With all the sins of hell.

It's 5:54 a.m. and the hot salty water bashes against the sand.
Now, the first cars emerge from the night-time lights.
I see a couple,
Him white shirt
Her black shirt
Looking like tourists,
They have the same desoriented expression as I do.

Couple blocks away I watch the red neon
Blinking from the distance,
Next thing I know I'm traveling through
                    each yellow light
                    each window
                    every spit of sea foam
                    every palm tree,

On top of another hotel
I found a room with lights on, yet
No one seems to be dazzling
                         in the dark
Gazing the horizon and the dark sea
All by himself...
                                        ...besides this hopeless fool
                                        waiting for the sunrise

I never wanted to be a hotel room
and though you were always the only resident
the hotel coffee stained my lungs with estranged men
and the sheets smelled of hidden places and hidden people

we made love like it was a crime
latching on to emergency handles
hoping something would have the strength to pull us apart
but nothing human ever could

I wish I had never met anything as human as you
you turned my insides into a graveyard where our hotel love was buried
and now my hidden place is where estranged men go to die
resting their body on my body, last breath caught between my lips

you will always hate the room you felt could have been your own
I will always hate the man who left the door open when leaving
open to the hidden men in hidden places
now you are still complete

sometimes missing a room in France
I am infected with men who took your exit as a welcome and
parts of me that rot slowly with the guilt you left me to live with
I told you to leave, it is my fault

but you, you couldn’t understand that my skin was made of tissue and you were
permanent marker promising to tread lightly as you slowly started tearing
my childhood to shreds, and I looked like a city after a tornado
and you looked at me like you were an artist and I, torn was a masterpiece
and still I was so afraid to hurt you.

and every trace you left on my skin with your finger print
was another thing I would go home to hide from my mother’s eyes
I couldn’t sit in her touch anymore because it was wrong for anyone to touch me but you
you could not be my anchor and lover and mother and friend

I never wanted to be a hotel room
I was supposed to be a home
and I know you wanted that too
but how the **** am I supposed to be a home if my hotel sheets now
smell like you.

do you have the key
to my cage
you might
but you must wait
keep waiting, keep waiting...

I am the girl in the cage
the golden cage
you opened all the windows
and some of the doors
and the key you hold
but it's not enough...

I am not my owner
I am not my owner

You have a body.
I know you never sleep there,

spend less time breathing than contemplating,
jailbreak daily from your ribcage,

harbor kitchen spoons to feed your escapism.
hide the entrance
under stale white hotel sheets.

Born to be an actress
with no script, you ponder this
in every mirror.

In every mirror you inherit this vacant body,
enough money to live in a studio apartment
in Washington, Vegas or anywhere

men would pay for three phone plans,
calf-length black socks and pseudonyms.

A room at the Marriot to trade scars,
connect you again with your skin.

At a political dinner
roasted hog, blueberry pie,
gilded knifes protecting the spoons.

Dog mouths are wet for scraps.
They bark beneath the table,

"Unoccupied bodies, should start charging rent.
Have you considered being a *** worker?"

"...Oh come on,
you never even turn on the lights."

I think I'm losing you, but I will never regret choosing you
Because I am in love, and for now that will be enough
And the ones around me convince me that I was the only person who was dumb enough to believe that you and I had hope.
But now I know even after you began to let your emotions slow the only reason I stood alone was because I was the only one who knew our love was never going to let go.

Everyone wanted me to see that we could not thrive, so gouge out my eyes.
Because if this is reality then I guess I'm not alive,
Because I don't know a life in where I can't make things right.
And when life teaches you to drive and you finally say goodbye
And you won't let me stand by your side
Ill know that though some feelings are hurt, none will have died.
Cause I used to stay up at night and picture myself looking into your eyes
Shouting as you would sigh “how dare you think you can fall asleep with water dripping from the kitchen sink, how dare you think you can fall asleep with all these little leaks in this home we built in our dreams”

A picture is worth a thousand words or whatever people say to me.
It's hard to believe when your mind is lost and in need,
And all you can picture is a memory inside of someone else's sheets.
A prayer that nothing will keep,
A hope that light will seek before the dark sinks too deep.
Or at least the sinking feeling inside of me will decrease when the release of perceived dreams burn in the flame of feeling free.
So feel free to be free if that's what you need.

And if someday you feel alone and everything caves in when you try to breathe,
Know that you are not alone as far as I can see,
Because you were everything to me.
Through this I have realized that if I were God we would have all just died,
Because darling you were mine and now I feel so dead inside,
And what good am I if all I can create is a projection of my own mind.
A dream of finding time to remind you that I'm still here and I'm not fine.
And darling if you're going to leave just remember who you are,
And do what you can to remember me.

Maybe someday we can talk about our past and we can talk about the weather.
Whenever you leave I don't care what I'm remembered for,
I just want to be remembered.
Because even if I failed you at least I tried,
And maybe our lives don't add up now but someday our graves will look the same when we both die.
And if I had a chance I'd give you one last kiss and I'd bite down on your lip
And I'd try to puncture it so you'll never forget that time,
But you'll always regret.
And darling I know sometimes life will take a turn for the worst,
And sometimes life will even hurt.
And I know some days, some days you'll be afraid of the lessons you'll have to learn
And some days you'll even feel burned,
And I want to let you know that I want to love you through them.

But I always get what I deserve.