I can't begin to portray to you the feeling of a dream coming true- I know it sounds corny, but it's so true. And useful. I
was just a girl who was tired of waitressing and people believed in me and fed me by coming to my shows. Without my
friends in San Diego, and now this incredible new group of people across the country I would still be hungry in my van.
Now I'm just hungry in a rent-a-car in 48 states in 40 days- but my heart loves it! 24 hours of this a day is better than
three hours of waitressing. Sometimes record labels think they sell albums- but they don't- they help, but it's you guys
who help me. So often our dreams become our hobbies and it deadens our passions. I love my life and want to thank
you all. I know our lives are separate and that none of you have to care about my happiness, but that you do things like
taking the time to call radio stations means a lot to me. I hope I can give back as much as I'm given. I wrote a song I'd
like to dedicate to you all. It's called "Deep Water." I hope you can all hear it one day.

Jewel Kilcher

I think of the scrutiny
and shrink beneath
its million eyes

has she gained weight?
does blue become her?
is she losing her light?

Never "My I believe her intent is growing, if not her skill"

Never noticing deaths
Misfigured face in perfection or beauty in the awkward struggle of a new direction

We've become fascinated
With the fixed
We possess all the curiosity
of a cul-de-sac
as though the honor lied in the
mastering of the menial
It can not be the end for which we live
That is death,
But for the struggle that keeps us young
Daring to make mistakes
Knowing there are none.

As a child I walked
with noisy fingers
along the hemline
of so many meadows
back home
Green fabric
stretched out
shy earth
shock of sky
I'd sit on logs like pulpits
listen to the sermon
of sparrows
and find god in Simplicity
there amongst the dandelion
and thorn

  
The savages are upon me
and I feel my flesh
Burn
beneath the teeth

FAITH (A Poem about Faith)

I don't know how to do anything
I am trying to move mountains with words
But I am an ant
I scribble
I drool
I move like a worm
whose world
(words)
encompassed a mile
How do I rise above?
Where will this worm
find wings?
I look in the mirror
and I see filth
Who is that?
Where did The Angel go?
Why is there dirt
staring back at me?
Why is the soil of
incompetence beneath my nails
Why does doubt paint
blue rings
beneath my eyes and
stain my skin
Why does my spine assume failure
Why do my lips
flirt with they sky;
why do I try to lasso
Beauty with such a
pitiful rope?
Where is the hair of Rapunzel
or Samson?
Where is my sling
Where is my stone,
My gun?
Where is the weapon with which
I may fight this apathy
that feels like sleep
in my limbs
that loosens my brother's smile
That kills my neighbor's daughter
This pen is scrawny and hardly
seems able to ink out
or erase this plague that
infests my
Generation
This Giant, This Ogre
This Beast, This Death
that assumes a million faces,
that borrows my own.

FAT

There she sat, a mound of flesh
with just two eyes to comprehend
the extensiveness of her being.
She made a mountaint of herself,
so no one could look down.
So no one would miss or fail to see
the tiny woman hands that talked
desperately of delicate things.
Through a fist full of rings
to all who would stop and listen.

FATHER OF A DEAF GIRL

Everytime her hands began to stutter he became
enraged. She threw these fits sometimes, and he
never took the time to understand what they meant.
Her words were wasted on him. Her hands useless
birds caged by their quietness, and he would
immobilize them, tying her wrist together so they'd
jump like awkward fish, gasping at the shock of air.
Uh-heard they'd dance like that for hours, her eyes
full of silent desperation, on the other side of the
closet door. He never even knew what they were
saying.

I want to fly from here! I want to fly from
here! I want to fly from here! I want to fly
from here! I want to fly from here! I want
to fly from here!

FLIGHT #364

I miss you
my teeth ache
my bones are confused
they'd grown so close
my flesh cries like children
I speak to them in hush
it's not fair they say
bring him back!
beg him stay!
it's not up to me. I try to explain
but mind can't make heart understand
it does not whimper
its one lashed eye keeps blinking
it insists simply with quiet disbelief
LOVE IS NOT WITHOUT YOU
I go back today
back to where I must move from
my toothbrush no longer welcome
my clothing canker sores
my altar a wound
whose bleeding can only stop
when there's nothing left
to remind him of me  
(I don't wanna go)

IT HAS BEEN LONG

It has been
long and
Bony since
your willing
ways since
those thirstful
days of
summer nights
and Burning Beds

I AM NOT FROM HERE

I am not from here
my hair smells of the wind
and is full of constellations,
and I move about this world
with a healthy disbelief.
And I approach my days and my work
with vaporous consequence
a touch that is translucent,
but can violate stone.

INSECURITY

You don't call
I check again
I become uneasy--is this a frame?
Suddenly I'm not so sure
I check my sources
each conversation becomes a crumb
how easily I'm led
how stupid I've been
to believe
you could be
loving me
you who can not be seduced
by anything other than
the temperance
of need
each one facilitating the next
and suddenly I see my place
the phone rings
you say hello
but I don't believe you

I SAY TO YOU IDOLS

I say to you
of carefully studied
disillusionment
    
And you worshipers
who find beauty
in only fallen things
that the greatest
Grace
we can aspire to
    
is the strength
to see the wounded
walk with the forgotten
and pull ourselves
from the screaming
blood of our losses
to fight on
undaunted
all the more

INFATUATION

Infatuation is a strange
thing.
A bony creature thin with feeding on itself.
It is addicted not to its subject, but to its own vain hunger
And needs but a pretty face to fuel its rampant imagination.
It's humid couch and sweaty palms.
It's fleshy carpets ablaze with conquest.
But when conquering is complete,
the blood leaves its limbs and it becomes disenchanted.
Disappointed even to the point of disgust
with its subject, who sits then, like a hollow trunk,
emptied of its precious cargo
and left to fade like defeated naval ships.
A seed relieved of its transparent husk,
to dissolve finally on a rough and impatient tongue.

I MISS YOUR TOUCH

I miss your touch
all taciturn
like the slow migration of birds
nesting momentarily
upon my breast
then lifting
silver and quick--
sabotaging the landscape
with their absence
    
my skin silent without
their song
a thirsty pool of patient flesh

LOST

Lost is a puzzle of stars
that breathes like water
and chews like stone.
Alone is a reminder
of how far your acceptance is
from your understanding.
Fear is a bird that believes itself
into extinction.
Desperation: the honest recognition
of a false truth.
Hope: seeing who you really are
at your highest
is who you will become.
Grace: the refinement of a soul through time.

LAS VEGAS

Women who suck
their cigarettes
as though they were
giving their
hatred head

ME

I have blonde hair
I pluck my eyebrows
I have my father's nose
my mother's hands
I have crooked teeth
and green eyes
I play guitar
I used to get sick alot
I like the color of wine
I've cheated on boyfriends
I've owned fake ID
But my hair is still blonde
and my teeth are still crooked
and I probably won't always like
the color of wine

II
I have firm breasts
I have lips that always smile
I have veins that bleed
I laugh when I'm nervous
I feel the pain of others
but cry for no reason
I like open flame
I've been selfish since a child
I'm from Alaska
but hate the cold
I've cheated on diets
I've faked applications
But I still bleed
and my lips still smile
and my breasts won't
always be firm

III
I have strong shoulders
I have olive skin
I have a Swiss face I
borrowed from my grandmother
I have long nails on my right hand
which break regularly
My little toe is strange
I write
I used to make wreaths from dandelions
I brush my hair before bed
I cheated on tests
I faked flirtatious French accents
But I still have gold skin
and my nails still break
and I probably won't always have
strong shoulders
and I may not always write
But maybe I'll start
making wreaths
from dandelions again

TAKING THE SLAVE

Burn her eyes, without hope
of understanding them.
Kiss her mouth, that you may fathom its strange tongue.
Indulge in her brown skin because it reminds you of mother.
Rape her mind, because it is not your own,
but so sweet, so familiar.
Like coming home to a native land
your pale and inbred hands can only faintly fathom.

UPON MOVING INTO MY VAN

Joy, Pure Joy, I am
What I always wanted
to grow up and be
Things are becoming
more of a dream with
each waking day-
The heavy brows of Daily Life
are becoming encrusted
with glitter and the shaking finger
of consequence is
beginning to giggle
Grumpy old men
have wings
Burns sport Halos
and everyday dullness
has begun to breathe
as I remember the
incredible lightness
of living

WHAT I WANTED

I guess what I wanted was to
hear
you'd stay with me always.
I guess what I wanted was to see
those hands vowing never to leave my own.
I guess what I wanted to know was
I am not loving in vain.