The other night you said
    You could never love like this again
    Your stare piercing each vessel
    As it squired uncomfortably
    Underneath my skin

    Everybody knows
    Just exactly what it is I did
    There’s no holds barred, now
    and I plan to go down with my sin

    She holds her breath
    Praying she doesn’t see her again
    It’s own sick form of torment
    To the transgressor and the transgressed
    Every time a car rolls by
    “Has she come to take you, is the time here yet?”
    For her it isn’t if, it’s when

    I gave away what was not mine to squander
    and You’ll call me a liar, worse yet
    but For every shred
    Of evidence I left
    I too left the key for your vengeance

    and I hope you’ll wield your weapon wisely
    For this shot,
    Its the last one I’ve got

    So I ram the rod down the shaft
    Compressing the powder
    Lick my fingers clean
    Of the filth I’ve wallowed in
    I’d shed a tear, but what’s left is a monster
    The girl I was, she won’t come back to haunt you
    She’s given up too much hope for that

“This’ll be her last winter”
My father says in a
Soft sort of way
The same words I’ve heard him say
Countless times before
He always had an understanding
Of life and death
and A quiet acceptance of both

As we drove the road sides
Were littered with bodies and snow
Corpses waiting until spring
To decompose

He’ll never worry again
About being the last one left
The people mill about as if
Nothing’s changed at all
but He can’t stop looking at
The place where she used to sit
and It hasn’t quite sunk in yet
That she’s gone, forever
He’ll never see her again
She’s never coming back
and He can’t shake the feeling that
He no longer belongs in this place
He can’t move on and he
Can’t go home
Because she is dead
She is dead and he’s
He is the one that remains

This was her last winter and she
Nearly made it through
He holds his tea between his fingers
and Looks at me as he whispers,
“This’ll be my last, too.”

When I saw that the black had permeated
Every last vein, nail, and hair
and That it finally stopped to rest
Deep inside me, somewhere
I pulled out my best knife
and I rolled up my sleeves
Without thinking, I tore open the skin
and What I found wasn’t regret, but relief

I watched as one by one
They milled about and then out of the room
They stopped to peer inside the box
Before they left, they each caught
A glimpse of the beast that
Loomed underneath
No one dared to touch the thing
The oddity that had become me

So I guess they wouldn’t have known
I was harmless back then
I wasn’t a monster yet
I guess it doesn’t matter now
Like everything else, it’s water under the bridge

It was November in Houston
I remember because the leaves
Were crunching under my feet
and The air had this stagnant, hot feeling
but The breeze was cool
and Soothing to me
Just cool enough for long sleeves

She lived just up the street
I had a place to park my car and put my things
She was a piece of work, to put it lightly
Better it be her than me

I was a monster back then
but I didn’t know it yet
Sometimes ignorance
Has a kinder effect

Amazing the things that stick to us as we grow
Things burrowed so deep that we don’t even know

She wanted so badly
To believe that she loved me
That what we had was
Something of meaning
She took me to a psychic,
A palm reader
In hopes she could fix things
Instead I did coke in their picturesque bathroom
and Met you in the car after my fix

Thinking about it now makes me sick
but Like you always say,
“It is what it is”
That was a decade ago
Almost a lifetime
Another person ago
A different time in my life

I’ve closed the door
and In my mind
I’ve left the mirror girl behind
I watched her face pale
As she stepped back into the mist
Then she slipped into the darkness,
Irretrievable

and The part that wants to drive
This whole mess into the canyon
Drew great satisfaction
From my demise
Her eyes faded to black
and It seemed almost familiar
I can almost put my finger on it
I guess either way, though
I’d prefer the ladder