Be gentle with yourself Your graceful little steps Lavender ribbons in your hair Pulling a drive-by at the car wash Infuriating all of your closest friends Tugging on the rips in your jeans, hoping that when the fabric bursts at the seams You will pave the way for new daydreams & life will be plentiful Once upon a time
Like lock and key, I thought you were made for me But I was made for more Than what this world has to offer
Inside we are all vulnerable Deserving of kindness But God isn’t always so polite. A penchant for Throwing stones at your door My fingers appear as though they have suffered frostbite
Chewing on a plastic straw I thought that I had gone too far But then I noticed – I had not moved at all Weaving a new daydream Absorbing my most fragile insecurities And thinking they might be the reasons someone wonderful will fall in love with me
What would that be like? I thought I had it in another life When our spines reached the corners of the bedroom That we had painted the most ethereal blue I had ever intoxicated myself with, out of sheer hospitality For the fiber network of my musculoskeletal orchestration A girl in a sundress The middle of winter Taking my gloves off to text him back Frostbite Frostbite
Needless to say I buy one pack of Parliaments per day Just to never Just to never Just to never run out Because what if I Because what if I What if I were to run out Find you in the middle of the intersection Screaming for help on a bookshelf That you built yourself
Then, what would I do? Coat you in ethereal blue? I’d display all the facts that I contain in my porcelain doll frame, regarding the closest moon
Or find myself at home With nobody on the phone The concrete entering my residence like it’s testing my weightlessness
Paint me diamonds, buy me charcoal Unravel me on purpose With potential To be In a picture frame with me
I don’t want to put my cards all over the table Though I’m dying to show you what’s true How real this significance is My significant other
Sitting on my lily pad You know I’m the only one that can get you to relax Move in slow motion I’m heavenly reserved & I know you don’t do these things on purpose But the caffeine in this Earl Grey tea It’s making me nervous I know you don’t do it on purpose
Swaying with myself in my bedroom I can be violent if you turn the heat up No longer desperate to be enough I’ve got a sweetness concave within me A fruit I only bear to those that can hold it Tight
Pushing all my buttons Convincing myself I kind of love it Have I shown you what’s at the bottom of the sea? Underneath all the make-believe
I don’t want to have to ask if you missed me! I’m getting run over by the same train over and over again My eyes close when I drive & I don’t even mind Collect my cigarettes in an empty coke can Police on a motorcycle Firearms in my trunk No longer desperate to be enough I keep trying to make it to the bottom of the sea But something pulls me back above I want you to drown with me If you do Make sure I drown too
Don’t read into my words Don’t touch me softly, then make it hurt A one-way ticket to my favourite Chicago Transit Authority stop Where I am free to walk around I don’t need bells and whistles I need the fogginess to stop
A rose that blooms On repeat A rose that blooms On repeat A rose that blooms When I sleep A rose that blooms On repeat
I want you to drown with me When I get off my Lily pad
Suddenly The impetus is on me To be perfect, so perfect, for you again Satin & lavender bedsheets Fresh clothes from the dryer Neurons that synapse when the clock resets
But I can’t Withstand Dissonance I can’t Bear to Live with regret I can’t Break free from This tangled fishnet The wire digging its claws directly into my spine
Disengagement when separated Disregarded how you said maybe Perhaps it’s my own agenda that I failed to write out in black ink My own handwriting looks foreign to me The flowers in my apartment have finished dying I closed the curtains, but someone is waiting To see me burn out like I’ve been on fire this whole time
Carving my name into my solitude Changing the location of a confined venue I don’t like this dress Don’t like how I look in it Want you to tell me I inspire you to stop playing make-believe Wish you would bring me roses & be gentle with me Not let me lose any more sleep
I’m not really writing I’m scared of defining How lazy I’ve gotten at building my self-esteem The ships are all sinking The pilot keeps blinking & the leftovers have spoiled because real things are only real in real time
So I hit “unsend” Spend the afternoon in my garden Playing with my own hair, saying your name to myself
I can’t even ask you What you meant when you said nothing Because I know myself to get in the way of what could be
I’ll trace my ashes In long cylinder glasses Faking a proof-of-concept of a girl who takes pride in the way she carries herself
Now I’m scared of writing Because I don’t like what I see And that holds far too much meaning to me
I’m sick of trying To act like I haven’t been Crying myself to sleep
Tell me I’m perfect Say that you missed me Step into my four-chambered studio where the pianos lack keys & the guitars have no strings We can dissolve into anything we want life to be
Tell me you missed me Without lying to me Tell me I’m perfect Because you can see how I dream Tell me you loved how I didn’t seem desperate To find in my own self what you’ve found in yours
I’ll rearrange my bedroom Work on shifting my patterns So that the stillness in your settings can bleed into me
Tell me I’m perfect Without lying to me Reach for me when I’m drowning In my make-believe sea Allow me to realize there’s more to let go of More in life to make sense of More in this life to see
When you’ve regained stability Found blue-green lakes filled with clarity Then, you can come back to me
I’ll be in my garden Telling myself That I don’t have to be perfect to be something real
Drawing soft pink porcelain dolls Make every word of yours important If you’re speaking with purpose The chaos in this dark room It makes me nervous But when I’m touching you Like peach pink amphetamines You push something onto me that makes me breathe
For a second there For just a minute I lost my breath
For just a second there For quite a minute I’ve become oblivious
I get excited for a hot second Come out with guns blazing So self-aware, peach pit You like the way I serenade you Dance around you in top-secret chambers Untold, leaving it untold Don’t get anything for free Write whatever I want It’s my heart, I forgot It’s my heart, I forgot You make me soft
Put some Salsa on and I’ll show you my moves What I keep in my medicine cabinet I’m made of Cabernet red I’ll drink you in three sips Balsamic vinaigrette Anything that rhymes with your safety net I’m lying by the pool God I feel so cool Looking at you Cabernet red
I’m kicking and screaming I don’t want you to spend the night Yeah, I’ll be alright I’m kicking and screaming Introverted I don’t want you to stay the night I’m kicking and screaming Introverted Red t shirt
You don’t make me nervous I have these soft lips Amphetamines for fingertips Intoxicating, isn’t it
Minnesota in the hot, hot sun I’ll write a memoir, like I’m a film star Like my words are fiber nectar & galvanized tar I wish I could join the assembly line Not to find out, not to decay, but to come out bright white & crystal, grey clay To become transparent in the grand scheme of things Be able to extrapolate meaning from my own devices Tell you how I find human beings so lifeless Wrapped up in their due process of mind Fingertips on roses, your hands on the arched back that is mine Fever dreams Amphetamines
I know the road is farther than it seems I’ve seen the bitter resemblance of what’s paved underneath My eyes blur, I can’t see, I can’t see a thing Wouldn’t you like to have a dance with refined me? I’m mesmerized by nothing at all Nobody pays attention to what I want them to pay attention to I’m violent, I got this, I’m gutless, I’m thinner than the fabric Screaming my insides out, I’ll eat you alive Won’t find me on your bedside You said, you said You said, you said Your goodbyes so hazily Tell me, how do you wish to be portrayed? When they paint you wrong, are you dismayed? What are you proud to take to the grave? I’m taking the dreams I made
I have this one song, I get a lot of meaning from it The way it blankets me in security and A freedom I’ve never found in a single human being They’re tar-stained, they’re charcoal remnants They’ll gaslight you and then say that you’re gaslighting them in return The apprehension is near, I told you the car was far away I didn’t see it coming my way Somehow I didn’t mind I had this dream, I saw the glass-slipper ball gown The one I wore when You said, I swore, you said You said, I swore it, I swore you said Wouldn’t be there Star-crossed lovers Awake with hesitation Marvel at my presentation Scattered in assembly, grief like parasites Do you know anyone who sees you in the right & softest light?
I’m thinner than fabric, I’m tougher than fossil fuels If it’s confusing, it’s only confusing to you Me – I know what’s going on Write you a grocery list of things to bring A sustainable sparkle, a delicate sapphire An element of surprise to add to the details and decor Horrors of society seem to fade when we turn the television on
Melt me like aspartame in Coca Cola Ignite a funeral home Tell me what you find transparent Covered in frost, I’m not vaguely processed I’m rarely understood and I think I know why I think this life is mine to apprehend and find I lose my keys over and over again on purpose Locked out so I can write But I thought you said, I thought you said But I thought you said, I thought you said
I have this one song that makes me feel more like myself than anything else I play it on repeat because I’m sick of hearing about my diminishing health Drown out the noise, fiber-glass, can’t see, my vision blurs The ocean is my lord & savior I’m not even surprised by their behavior The evidence is real because it’s written on parchment paper
It always ends It always ends like this I’m in the shower, white roses and pink carnations, I feel true bliss You’d be obsolete In a thousand years We’re connected by the fabric The sheer and hazy stillness Do it on the daily Hate you a little, just maybe Match my evening glow
If you hate me, that’s not a well thought-out decision You have your fears and I have this one song That makes me feel more like myself than I’ve ever felt before And I play it I play it all day long When the noise drowns me out, I sing along You wouldn’t say, you wouldn’t say Anything to conclude the grime and the dirt you brought to my doorstep A cave’s internal diameter A concave, arching sky The exact shade of your brown eyes My skin is softest on the tops of my thighs
I don’t hate anyone I don’t hate anything I don’t hate anyone There’s just nothing left to sink Drowning in the deep end because in the water I’m completely occupying my body I don’t hate anyone I don’t hate anything I’ll let the water have me, on purpose, on purpose
Does drowning make you nervous? Does real love make you hesitate?
Does drowning make you nervous? Does real love make you hesitate? Does drowning make you hesitate?
