Clear your mind
Cause there's nothing left of it
Clean up your act
No ones watching you, anymore
It's time to change
Your sick and twisted ways with this
Sick and twisted moments
That you play for what you got

Stay back girl
You're not welcome here anymore
You made your path
Now it's time to walk it out the door
My mind is made
Right up and yours is too
Walk the other way
There just is nothing left to say

Were all done here
We've moved on, or at least I have anyway
Try a new way
To bring about a new and brighter day
Careful now
Don't let this world drag you down
Live your life
Far away from me so you can see
That I'm gone
And life is better like this anyway

I was twisting a water bottle
Shredding the label with my fingernails
And keeping it away from your enthusiastic dog
I’d been here before
And I would be here again
Holding back tears as an unlikely friend held me together
I had too many loose ends
And you tied knots with an engineer’s efficiency
For all your teasing
I’d never realized you were a nice guy
Taking me in like the silly wretch that I was
And letting me stay until I felt I could hold my head up again
I convinced myself I had you figured out
Tall and tough but secretly compassionate
A closet empath who impressively tossed words around a notebook page
I let everything bouncing around in my head
Tumble out into your scarred hands
And I assumed you had done the same
So that I could finally see the truth trapped in that lofty mind

It’s funny
I’ve come to realize that I never really knew you the way I thought I did
You’ve always played a concealed hand
Showing me the occasional queen of hearts
But only when you wanted me to see
It’s disappointing
Because you know me too well
I dissected my heart muscles so you could read the struggles scrawled across them
Sitting in your kitchen
All those days
I showed you all the insecurities etched across my skin
Raw and red and burning with the desperation
To be noticed
I wish I could have taken some of your scars
In exchange for all my scribbles
You patiently accepted all the scraps of myself I tossed at you
And I wanted to return the favor
I wanted to read whatever you had penned across your ventricles
I wanted you to flay open your mind so that I might understand

I may have wanted too much of you
Forgetting that not everyone is a frenetic tangle of feelings
Forgetting that I’m just a frazzled, insignificant girl
Who wants to save the world on force of will alone

Sitting in your kitchen
From time to time
You told me you believed in me
So I believed I could do it
I only wish I’d known enough to do the same for you

I walk between content and happy
confused and bewildered
no complaint
but
why should I continue
a subtle smirk, a fake laugh
lie about my state
but my blood stands still
and I yearn for a thrill
and a day of genuinely happy

Colorful and tempting,
Convincing me of need;
Your evil calls me closer;
Justifies the feed.

Pain teams to join the wanting
Convincing trails you leave
Fueled with my desire
I gently follow thee.

Momentary satisfaction
Relieved, relaxed, and strong.
Your love I now desire
Caught up in magic for too long.

Soon the joy deserts me
Inside I’d always known
You’d make your stay a short one
Your true intent now shown

Now Fear joins Pain to haunt me
How foolish I have been
To trust, to want, to live for
The satisfaction from within.

You beg my heart for mercy
Envelope me with love
Seductive, proud and tempting
Like legends I’ve heard of

I want you, deeply.  Badly.
Take away my pain
Your lies began to fade, now
Light now turns into shade.

I feel you, know you, sense you
Like part of me, you are.
Do I need you for existence?
Is the need, too much, bizarre?

No, something is not right, here.
I’ve lost now who I am
You almost got me this time,
Norco, you almost did me in.

Blame your desperation on the weather
             Match the gray with gray
Allow yourself a smile or two
Don’t overdo it
          Don’t force something like this
                             Try to make this all less crazy
Wash your face. Tighten up.
                                             Forget the blade, the poison, the stars
You overhear someone tell someone the time
              You’ve let that slip into
                                                   the background
in the spaces where the unseen meets

Blame your low-key troubles on the
                                                     T.V. shows
              Watch the skinny giants starve
   Someone’s changing the heat up and down
                                      in the pearl-sized world
And someone’s taken all the colors out for
                                    some other playground
those invisible hands, it follows, have too much
              pull and force on the everydays.
                  Keep yourself alive with twice strained coffee and sunny days
Cut your hair with the kitchen knife
                              Grow a beard, fake an accent,
                       Fake Silence.
Pretend to make it mean something, the collapse, the choking
               Clean the living
room
                                 wipe all the fingerprints
No one’s coming for you but you’d take a hug from a hired assassin
You’d sympathize with the serial killer about his sin
           You’d be impressed by his breath which smells of green mints.  

Blame the sickness in your blood
             Which warns off love with sores and fevers
                     On boredom and hunger
Make something of yourself, make yourself last
Peel off skin and let it dry like *** pourri
              Forget how to love the ones that hurt you
              Forget to how to hurt the ones that love you
Bite your lip to keep it all in
                     Bite to the bleeding, then
        Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh
Build fires out of sofas and the kitchen table, make a vacancy of home
Laugh at humanity stuffed and suffering on its stilts
           Smile at the honey moon you’ll never get to
Show your teeth at the ***** Death
             Make the damage worth the price.

I don’t know how to say
But I ache to try
I hate I talked that way
It wasn’t from my heart

Sometimes I let my feelings
Run my motor mouth
Instead of simply thinking
Before my tongue’s in gear

If I could plug a speaker
Directly to my heart
Then you’d hear it singing
Music you impart

So now I leave this note
My apology
My sorrow is from hurting you
Please, my Love, forgive me

I am not
who you think I am.
The girl you met
late one night at the bar
who so easily let down her guard.

I am not
the girl you spent
the night holding so tenderly.
The girl you called
so pretty, so beautiful.

I am not
who you think I am.
The girl with no defenses
has rebuilt all her fences
with steel, iron, barbed wire, voltage.

I am not
so easily bought
with pretty words, gentle kisses.
The girl who I am
would never let you in.

I am not
who you think I am.
The girl you like so much
doesn't want your touch
or anyone else's.

I am not
who you think I am.
I am independent,
fine with being alone,
taking care of myself.

I had a dream of a woman
A dream of a tattoo
This woman with a tattoo
With a thin black line from her mouth
From her mouth to her throat, straight down
From her mouth to her thighs
Two halves carry the line
Separate her body
Down her ribs
Through her body
Thoughts and blood
Her heart is two
Her throat is two
She is two
One can
One can’t
She can’t, but wants to
She doesn’t want to, but will
Half a mind to
Marrow and melancholy
Bright eyes
Dark hair
Blue veins
Red lips
Beautiful like a dream