Category: Blues

Passenger seat

distantcaveLeave a comment

I’m a small girl with a matchbox
A ticket to heaven
Leaving at eleven
Behind the curtains the children hide
I ask them what’s so fancy behind there

I walk home from the library
Hardcovers feel like survivorship
I’m dividing my eyes into pentagons
I still hear your song on the radio
Switch the television up to max vol

I’m by the lake, bow in my hair
The deer come closer like they love me
On my notepad I scratch his name out
Over and over again
I thought we could at least be friends

I’m passenger seat and you’re in the back
Glimmer in your eye thinking of paradise
You knew where you were going that night
You swore to me we’d be all right
It hurt like you threw the softest bricks

I’m passenger seat and you’re in the back
It hurt like you threw the softest bricks
Your book still lays untouched on my bed
Untouched as can be
Untouched as desolate me

The loudest silence when I found out
When I found out

No need to explain

distantcaveLeave a comment

Soft-spoken
Brilliant heavenly body
Make peace with somebody

Dissolve into anarchy
A stereotypical mess
Watch how I slowly undress
Kitchen counters made of marble

Rough like stone
Bad to the bone
Cheesy commercials with artificial dads
A girl wearing glitter buys 10,000 American flags
Cool like driving down to the beach

Play my favorite song on repeat
Count the white mustangs we see zipping by
Castration is key to a civil society
Ripe like peaches in the golden sunlight
What’s artificially bright
What’s mine is not yours

Peonies, dying patiently
Saying their goodbyes to me, myself, and I
Taking nicely-colored paint samples from the hardware store
I’m the kind of girl you’ll learn to adore

I’m the kind of girl you buy white roses for
Are you the kind of person that likes to fill others with joy?
Save it for the rainy days
No need to explain

Responsible for

distantcaveLeave a comment

Wearing your beanie while I’m typing up my manuscript
Glasses are foggy
Streets are wet
I wish I could slip away on a big black jet
A spider trapped within its own complex net

I’m learning to sew with the ladies from the home
They school me on the importance of finding a good man
They think I don’t understand
That a wife needs a home that she doesn’t have to be held responsible for
I nod and say, of course

I go out early to watch the sun rise in shades of peaches and apricots
Trace my fingertips on deep green leaves
Brush my hair once an hour to stay looking neat
Lana Del Rey on repeat
Most days I forget to eat

When you took me on your motorcycle
You knew I wasn’t afraid
So you zigzagged between cars
Like we were going to reach the stars
I told you heaven isn’t very far

I keep my composure in public
Keep my mind in all respects blank
But that was done for
When I saw a little child, lost in a drugstore
Ten times over

I said, take my hand

The Chicago Bears

distantcaveLeave a comment

I go back and forth between wanting your company
Looking for someone who won’t smother me
But perhaps I’m wrong to think I know how I feel
It’s just lately this life has felt madly unreal
In cold cereal and an empty mailbox, there’s no appeal
But if you’re looking for a low-mileage used car I can get you a real good deal
I spend my days choosing my favorites from the hex code color wheel
It keeps me busy while I heal

I used to steer into the next lane on purpose
Just to see if the driver was aware enough to notice
I do what I want and there’s a fault to that
November’s best purchase was a Chicago Bear’s hat
How much I adored those days when we had no thermostat
I had a faux fur coat and felt like an aristocrat
Always asking my loving boyfriend what he was staring at
And I lost it, just like that

Life has felt madly unreal
Aware enough to notice
If you don’t want to know

Then you’re like a lot of people

Fifty dollar bills & Angel sharks

distantcaveLeave a comment

You look much better than when you speak
Grandma says that Grandpa was her favorite antique
I like a boy who uses high speed drills and fixes trains that squeak
Marmalade, champagne, cool as ice on mint
My long, sparkly dress, camera captures the glint
Everyone’s staring at us, we might have to sprint
I’ve got to catch the parade this year
He sips fine, oh man, oh dear
A cherry on top for our sins
I’m leaving room for the might-have-beens
I like to look inside my crimson-red limbs

It takes me for a spin
Hi Daddy!
We’re at the park
It’s getting dark soon but I want to ride this train all night long
Even until the folks with no homes climb on and make room for the night
If this is their bedroom, I’m thinking something in the system’s not right
Squeeze your father good night

The winds and machines, they tell me their tricks
No trace of him left except for his chewed up toothpicks
They line my stairwell like a lunar eclipse
Several times at the docks we gazed at the ships

Now I’m on my own and I buy lemonade mix
I’m sour like the lemons you squeeze into your eyes
Yes I can tell when it’s me your patronize
A thousand types of metal, a thousand heavy sighs
When I close my eyes to sleep I see swarms of magpies
Come towards me in the dark
Nobody’s ever come so close
Fifty dollar bills and angel sharks
Your love is what I miss the most

Your love was better than most
Your love somehow got disposed
Your love haunts me like a ghost
Barely escaping
I’m
I’m barely escaping