Pink ballerina slippers A child crying out I have loved you – a thousand, a thousand, a thousand times
Your breaking voice The cracks in the tiles of my ivory bathroom floor If I could hold you forever I’d be somewhere safe Somewhere where the demons can’t get me Looking into your soft, collapsed face
One day I’ll understand God’s timing But honey, I’ll never stop trying My dandelion My aching Baby’s Breath A cardigan I only wear when I smoke non-menthol cigarettes Watching evening television Will you be there with me?
Counting my fingers Keeping me safe A car on fire on the side of the freeway I cannot wait until I get to see you again
Biting my fingers Keeping me safe I took you in my arms, but you showed me the way
I cannot wait until I get to see you again I cannot wait
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?
May is the month of Springtime flowers But when you leave, the atmosphere is sour And I’m alarmed That you don’t believe in a higher power When it’s sitting across the table from you
I was listening to a podcast where a guy said he went on a date with a woman that was exactly “his type,” so to speak, & he was driving home realizing he couldn’t pursue her because he didn’t want to fall into the same old patterns.
I thought of that statement when I saw you angrily crushing the buttons on your phone That you call “a stupid machine” Just like he did Unreasonably angry in disregard for how beautifully my lilac, dreamlike eye shadow was blurred upon my bare eyelids Not suited for the evening where we were supposed to celebrate your birthday Which felt more important to me, than to you I’d spent the previous evening looking for the most suitable birthday card in the CVS pharmacy that’s a few neighborhoods away, imagining they had better cards than the one several streets away from my residence Half-wondering if you would display it Half-knowing it’d be tucked away in a drawer
Do I want to be that girl? Do I want my eye-shadow to go unnoticed? Or the sparkle in my eyes to be diminished when you’re preoccupied with something external to yourself? Do I want to write questions instead of statements on my own poetry website where love is the theme and I’m somehow not the main character?
Hollow and concave Rich with vengeance Who your enemy is, is probably unknown to you, me, or the population at large But the gap I fill, gets bigger every day But my body does not So I sit in it, hardly occupying the space That I wish I could cover like a desert storm would
Unreasonably empty for the evening Watching you almost punch your steering wheel Is this where chaos lands me Is this the dream that I have been chasing down Like I’m unsure of myself Don’t know what to do with myself Have gotten beside myself
Sitting at my desk Writing, waiting Wondering what my father would say If he knew my teenage antics At my sharp age of near-thirty
Every woman has a man that brings her down to a lower degree I don’t want to know who I am beneath The sweet girl I am when I get ready by seven in the evening To celebrate a birthday that is more important to me, than to you
May is the month of Springtime flowers But when you leave, the atmosphere is sour And I’m alarmed That you don’t believe in a higher power When it’s sitting across the table from you
I can tell I can tell in my own poetry When I’m slipping into cracks In the asphalt The rendition of your worst dreams – concave nightmares Existing perfectly intertwined in cooler but violet & violent, amber tones Softly, gazing Haphazardly Barely awake and hardly credible Flashes of cyanide to intoxicate the evening and ruin the damage that’s in disarray So perfect, it all always seems to be
Somehow I’m always awake when you are Or you’re always awake when I am Or we catch each other at the right times
Like doves passing muted harmonies back and forth Into the night
I have to be very careful Because I’ve been I’ve been in these rivers before I swallowed marbles and bubbles and committed acts you’d say were inhumane I was a small girl I was in pain
I have to play my cards right Because I just want everything to be serene, the water clear Everything to be perfectly alright I’ve been waiting I’ve been waiting for you I’ve been waiting I’ve been waiting for you
I’ve spent long nights Wondering Thinking Just thinking About everything that keeps me away from you And how The line is so thin And I think I’m going to cross it again Like an avalanche in my brain
I’m looking at you but you’re not even Not even looking at me I’m looking at you but you’re not even Not even looking at me Like I’m too blind to see Like I’m too naive to believe That you would be in love with me Not even looking at me Are you in love with me Why won’t you, why won’t you tell me Not even looking at me
Million, million, million, million things I could say, now, in this field of wildflowers Hey! I can’t find my landscape You’re all I ever dreamt of I’m falling asleep while I’m awake I don’t know, I don’t know How all you do is take How all you do is take
Like an avalanche I spread my wings and pick them off, one by one I have “feelings” and you don’t have “emotions” I wish I could sit with a typewriter and feed words into your head Things I want on a handwritten note Delivered to me by mail Always on time, without fail A napkin from a fancy cafe in Paris Baby, I can tell you all the right things to say Why, why can’t things just go perfectly my way Is it unsettling The way things come into play The way night turns into day I can’t look away
You can’t convince someone You can’t convince someone to stay But you look so good So good So good So good So good When you walk away When you walk away Away Away Away
When you walk away The way night turns into day Like an avalanche in my brain
