Words are stupid;
look into my eyes. ~REM
Return to Sender
You drained me,
so now I'm left to drain myself
of dye, and drinks, and dry
the letters with virgin crimes
to be satisfied only in prose.
(For the lovers who cannot compose.)
I've turned the cycle
and called the psychic
for direction in this desert
to-be-drowned in dirt.
I'm barren.
Hell, Arthur, I'll never be flowing free again
without thinking of your
helpless grin
at the sounds of my moans.
While your priests atone,
you'll take full advantage
of your sword and stone.
Have another show.
We took another go
on the banister of "dreams come true."
So it was you,
my 900 number,
my love-letter receiver
during my youth.
I want you to take back your plugs
and have them returned.
You've done enough
with your 33 cents.
071500
Window Seat
Pull the shade.
Quicken the fade.
Watch everyone slip away
in their cotton blanket of clouds.
We're bound to fall.
Less gravity pulling me.
Pretend you're pretty
because you're sixteen
and don't know what
it's like to be eighty-three.
For the memory,
take this page
and lock away melodies
before they're stained.
You'll hear them on the radio
again someday.
You will know better.
We'll cut our loses
behind the "Vacancy" signs
blinking,
though there's never room in the inn
to breathe.
Take a drink.
Put it on the rocks.
Don't let me ask questions.
I want it louder
than the knocks in my head:
"Let me out! Let me breathe
you in!"
I used to want the truth,
but it's no use.
So I pull the shade
to make you fade. 071700
The Worst Sense
I caught a breeze of your
air, and I got all disheveled.
Stripped myself naked,
locked the door
in hopes of finding something more
than I thought I knew.
Once all I knew was you,
your gestures, your desperate measures,
you sneaky endeavors, and all you planned for
your future... with me,
and without my decision
you cut me out like a paper doll.
I will never dress again,
but if I do, it will be merely to defend
my soul against little demons
who want to dig deeper.
Now I'm the keeper of your secrets
because I wouldn't want to divulge
more than half my full.
Maybe one day
I'll see you on the patio
at a party I wasn't invited to,
and I'll show you how happy I am
with a butterfly on my arm,
to be completely without you.
Yeah, that would be nice
until our eyes locked,
turning my fire to ice,
and all I knew would come crumbling again,
just at the sight of you.
But maybe by then I'll forget the truth,
move on to more small talk:
"How do you do?"
And maybe I'll pretend
that you won't keep what you knew
with you
forever.
But your scent,
I will never forget. 071700, #663
Carry the Moon
If anyone were to fly
it would be my moon carrier guy,
rescuing me from shooting stars
upon which I'd wish to be by
someone else's lips.
It slips--
onto paper through quill.
He taught me the thrill
of getting high on flings and flame.
I taught him to tame
the fire in his heart,
perhaps in the part of him
that could have taken me over.
He rescued me
with wings on his back last night.
Fireworks strapped to her back,
he had touched his inner self;
he knew why his stares
washed away the lies
he told himself;
he asked himself why
he never wanted to go back
once he breathed her scent.
But he never knew why he was sent
to take me away
more and more this way.
So I strapped on my winged shoes
to catch up with the air
in this push towards freedom.
And though I might fall again one day,
I won't forget him
and the lunar eclipse in our hearts
as we parted
for a while.
070700
Rush the Hour
You come and you go
over mountains
below seas.
I don't know how to let go
when you keep chasing me
up and down--
even in my dreams,
you know how to direct me
beneath the trees
where we used to lie.
You once wrote "why"
on my calloused flesh.
I didn't know at the time,
but you said it answered every question
I'd ever have.
There are just better times
to grow together,
to fall out of place.
We'll meet again
in an unknown land
where bruises are less noticeable,
where we'll forgive and forget,
and perhaps be loyal...
When death is to understand
and all teachers are mad
as they test us before our lesson,
we'll rely on reason,
rush the hour to find the next valley.
Hear us hit the brakes
to avoid the imminent collision
and just fly away
when the steam engine comes our way.
But you come and you go.
Why don't you stay
someday? 070700
Quicksand Was Saving Time
I'd say good-bye
if I thought we'd truly end this way.
But I know we won't.
We'll settle apart again,
live our separate lives
thinking that awkwardness
was enough to keep the other way.
But we'll always crave to know.
I don't know to whom you'll say,
"She was once beautiful--
but we divorced anyway."
Rather, I know I'll never be the same.
Yes, you've come and you've gone,
and each time I think
this one will be the fatal bye-gone,
but you never failed to leave your track
in the sand of our
hourglass.
I was never sinking
though you burned a hole.
Thanks for changing.
It's stability you stole
with your faked security
I used to hold.
You'll run away once more
and think you've healed again.
But this, my love, will never end
until you break the glass.
Then your time will truly pass.
071100
Burning Man
I needed to see him burn
to be satisfied,
knowing he sat there all alone.
But the swell
would have to make up
for everything else,
and the tide would have to
whisper the answers from now on.
It will be me and my gun
alone and restless.
Who won on those lonely Saturday nights?
Let's just say I learned to bleed--
and call it a day.
Drain the pages dry
to learn my secrets,
but don't ever think you taught me
to live.
I learned myself to be
and be by myself.
I learned to donate my feelings
to the cowardly and needy,
but that was only a means
of survival--
and knowing he'll burn
for eternity.
071200
To he who drives me to poetry
I never wanted more than words and rhyme
and a little time to learn myself,
to take you on the ride into my wringing soul
out my vicious tongue.
No, I never wanted
to have been sitting here
wondering if you were
thinking about me too.
I didn't want the memories
of our better times
to fuel me through the next day,
to think it would be that way
again.
I never hoped
to see every sunset
and think it was only for us.
I didn't need anniversaries
to fly by
without a call from you.
I didn't ask for reflections on the water
to reveal your face from heaven.
I'd know why you were here to plague me
even in my sweetest dreams.
Then I'd know why the blue bird sings
and the west wind blows
and the vows and rings--
but no one knows these things,
and I just turn circles
to find out why I hold on so long,
why all my words come out so wrong.
I could never show you in verse.
That was my deepest curse.
071200
8 o'clock Sunset
It's much safer to love from afar.
You're not confronted very time you see his face.
It's just left to sit inside your throat,
to multiply and be swallowed
just before you might say anything.
The blues have never been deeper.
The fire in your brain
has never been brighter.
And all the colors will explode
after you divulge your secret
that grows and grows
until it meets the debris of all you
always knew.
Then you're forced to
take it down below
as you die and die
away
with the fading colors of the day.
071200
Sing for Your Supper
I still remember seeing you again
for the first time.
You mumbled about
avoiding this place so long.
I should have seen
that this would go on.
So we flipped some coins,
tried again.
Regained my faith
and shattered myself again
because I cared too much
while you never knew what to say.
I'll never forget late May
and all I was forced to do
to get you out of my head--
but you were never dead.
So it too until now
for you to move on
and get around.
A motivation of a different sort,
to get out of there
and sail off port
because to be surrounded
would be to be alone.
I used to watch you swimmin'
but I'd sink off the shallow end
just wishing to see you again
in your copper wire.
I would have died right then
to hear what you might say.
But by now I realize
you don't care anyway;
if you did, you wouldn't have sailed away.
071200
Third Time Around
Don't worry, Love,
I was safe and sound
when I hit the ground
third time around.
Luck was found,
growing around the edges
of the crust you left behind before--
when dreaming meant so much more,
I was sure I was picked from the sky.
Now I would much rather lie
between decades,
to catch better light on the brigades.
The pain will dwindle
before angels die to rekindle
lives as dirty as my hands.
I always felt I more understand
the cycles in your eyes,
the reasons why
it's better to leave the past behind--
for a time I thought
meant to be was not supposed to end.
I used to think, "Why didn't I bend
over backwards for the last one?"
I only caught myself more bait,
but at least I know this time.
062600, #639
Just a Little
He crowns himself his own throne
because he doesn't know better.
He's safer when he's closer
because the breathing isn't so hard.
I can't decide whether he's as innocent as she,
but he plays it off nicely when the waves sweep him away.
Does he dream like the other dreamers?
Does he pretend to care as if his conscience disappeared?
Does he read smoke signals?
Does he rely on the reflections
so he doesn't have to look into her eyes?
I realize I'll never know,
but when he says he cries a little,
does he cry for her or for me?
Just a scream would be fine.
Just want to know he's doing time
but just a little.
Pretend you're feeling more pain.
Assume you know the rain
and its intentions as it twist-turns and bends
on the rims of your glasses.
Catch your own purity on the way down.
I've learned when it's good to stay around.
I'll see him on the ground
when his wings grow tired.
Until then, he knows I cry
just a little
for him.
062600, #640
Sphalerite
("too fragile to be cut sharply")
Right, I remember that fight,
trying to figure out who would win this night--
the softer end of both our swords,
we're both a two-timing battle
turning into one won tattletale
of dreams, of addictions--
never read those restrictions
when you took my first piece.
I saw your sphalerite eyes
searching within all my boxes--packages of lies,
but I never doubted,
never knowing
your true intentions...
never doubted
the meaning of these feelings
when you asked such blunt questions.
And now you ask me to stow away
my love, the sealings
that made me more real
day after day.
Now I'm asked to fade away
but stay
close to feed you some more
words of wisdom from just as fragile a girl.
Our two became one
but only in my eyes.
(Brilliant disguise
when you held me.)
Can't say I'll fade away so easily.
Too bad I know better what you need
than whom I should be. 061500
ScanINg
pages always told me more
about how long to stay in one place,
watching one face.
Funny how we only know from grins
what's on the mind,
what's on the brain.
"When fame has got you down...
I'll be around."
When the tide has come back down,
a path will cross you
to my grounds.
You know where I'll be found,
and I'll wait for your bleeding halo
to come around the bend
or the echoes from your unfurling wings.
I'll write melodies
as I learn to respect the rights
of Earth--to resist the lights
from your birth.
I'll be ready for you
when you hit the ground.
This time I won't fall with you.
I'll know how long to stay
in one place,
when to watch your face.
061500
My Five Words
We collected sunsets
on the last Sunday of May.
I thought it most beautiful when it came from you,
though nothing lasts longer
than our possessions when remembered.
I wait for my lawful tune.
It’s always playing in your attic.
I always see a light.
I never forget our last night.
I cried before I could even say good-bye.
And to think, that was the easy part.
"I love you, ____ _____," you hear in my voice,
as if my words, controlled by a puppeteer,
were my choice.
If I could, I’d leave.
I’d pack up my memories,
be satisfied, and flee
before you’d climb my veins again.
I’d scream loud
if I thought you wouldn’t hear
what you should naturally find in my voice:
"Loving you is complete misery."
Don’t take pity on me,
just respect that you’ve made it harder
than it could have been,
Your beauty, I cannot even hold in my eyes
anymore. And I cannot take it
anymore, how you can climb and conquer
while I’m left somewhere below.
My five words—no, you don’t know.
My shadow claims to show
you everything naturally
as our sunsets slip away
more and more every day.
That’s all I’m left with today.
How could I wait
to see your flaming chariot?
Two-face, two worlds, two chances
down the drain.
If you choose to read anything,
read my face—
not the trails of tears,
just the reflection of drowning future years.
I’ve gotta let go to come back.
I wanted it all; you’re taking it back.
There’s so much more I would I could keep,
but "I’m in too damn deep." 061100, #632
Pay Phone
Leave me on this bed of lies
that must be
burned; cursed too many times
over for thinking I could be virgin anymore—
or enough to be more appealing than before,
more than just a net below
so you can fall and bestow
prospects and hopes for a partner.
And, she will never be me.
You’ve "figured out" things
that include me but subtract me
from being the one you want ever.
And I’m forced to accept the
declaration without questioning
motives, a change to the Constitutions.
So I’ll bear my arms
so I won’t feel so all alone
once you keep me on the phone
twenty-two minutes longer than the quarter deserved—
just to drop the receiver down,
just to help me drown
deeper in my forever-shallow tears
as answers come free-flowing
from your virgin breath:
She will never be me.
061000
Figure 8
You ever tried to love someone who deserved it?
You ever tried to leave without feeling you deserted it?
I’m in between,
and I’ve never been the same.
The steps to the sacred
are never so hard.
So now ____ needs to know who to ask—
it’s my mistaste
but my destiny.
I know I’ll be forever shamed,
but now I don’t care
where my soul goes; anywhere
from here will at least make the tears
less salty than our oceans.
I’ll figure it out
once I can tear the pictures down.
I’ll figure the eight
of infinity to show you
every possibility.
I’ll kill chances for originality,
but it will be all too new
because SHE WILL BE ME,
glittering above the knees.
She will be all you want,
all you need,
and you won’t worry about
deserving or deserting her.
I’ll be yours to die.
I’ll be you curse, your lie
to yourself.
I’ll be your prayer.
I’ll be your tamer,
but I’ll be yours—
and you’ll know who to ask.
061000
#630
He brought me good gyrations.
He brought me to my knees.
I gave him words of wisdom.
I would never have asked "please."
We fed off each other now
because we were no longer one.
We remembered our past
and gladly never took the chance
of living it again.
We were to remain as friends,
and he said this was best—
my thoughts of the future never rested,
so I was to agree, to make this me
and what I wanted.
(And that was never clear.)
He’ll now try to be sweet
because that’s the way he was meant to be,
and tell me about the next girl he screwed—
and for some reason, it never began to sound lewd.
I’ll take the next punch,
for this is my only way inside
the boy who was to take me as his bride—
or take something else away,
that will bleed away.
You knew it better than I did all the way
down the corridors of your chained up heart.
You said you didn’t know what love was.
I think it’s about time you start.
061100
Spinning
Can't stop the sensation
from just looking at you,
spinning in circles
joyful jubilee
So no one reminds me
of how they want me to be--
this is as pure as I'll ever be
The colors blend like a pinwheel
over your head
I don't understand it--
and for once
I don't care
I'm waiting for the air
to leave my head
so I can live on only your breath
This moment
will keep turning within memories
because I knew you best when
the outside world
was fading away
Words melted into the next day
but this was burned into my heart
You'd done your part
and there was nothing more to say
when the dance stopped
and you went away.
060900, #622
Twenty-two and Counting
Come in.
Bolt out.
Do not enter.
Please don't shout.
I'll always be here--
you know no doubts.
It keeps your secure
on your solo flights.
And I'll be here
each night.
Come in fat.
Leave before I wake.
You don't have much more
to take from me.
One to twenty-two,
and I'll never forget
our beginning ending
when I saw good intentions fading.
I'm relating to you secrets.
Play one for the fool on the radio,
"one for the love who came and went."
I was thinking of charging rent
on my time, on my heart; on my bed
I'm lying, waiting
for something to get started
before you leave again.
061000, #623
Cannot Be
Cry your artificial tears.
Cheat and start in the line above
'cause you think you
could give yourself something more tonight.
and don't forget:
an apple a day is
always one bite closer to the poison.
Not as beautiful as you remembered, but that's
nothing new.
Number three was supposed to be lucky.
Open minds were bound to break it,
ogle over nothing new.
Told you so
too many times.
Take me to a place where the
toys won't come alive.
Blinded by the boy
entirely by the Experiment.
060400
Diffusion
You looked so gorgeous today,
and I wondered why I had let you inside
once more, through my door
and up the rivers of my veins
with one touch on the collar.
I was back.
And maybe it was the turquoise hue,
but you smelled different too.
A new addiction--just like glue
I was bound to you.
You once asked me about direction,
and all I could think of was the compass,
spinning you North to East to South to West,
back down South, swinging back to East...
Three deaths between us.
Two lives behind us.
One love below this.
I might be sinking.
One handshake for the road.
I'll never know
if seeing you was right.
But at least I'll sleep tonight
with your soul in my blue blood.
052100
Retreat
Don't wish to plague you
with my best expression ever.
Feel free to kiss me--
wish me away.
But know it was you
who made me real.
Feel free to stay with me--
play to me that one song
that somehow,
some way put you back together,
taught you how to deal.
Feel free to love me--
shove me away
when I'd rather be hiding, anyway.
Wasting away
until the day of less delay,
next time we cross paths again.
Maybe I will feel differently as friends,
but I must hide away for now.
To push away--I don't know how.
Feel free to tell me--
repel me
downward.
To flame the fall is
to further the flight.
052100
Pumpkin Shell
Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater
had a wife and couldn't keep her,
placed her in a hazy hell.
He never knew her truly well.
And there she sits
warm by synthetic fire,
keeps her safe;
she thought desire
was her way to always be.
Now she tries to learn to breathe
without the weight that drove her down.
The kings and queens will dye her Crowne
and rape her of all she thought she'd see.
The mark was dated,
sealed with a kiss;
a marriage of words.
She thought she'd miss
the sunset of his eyes,
the ways of an outlasting girl.
As she left her pumpkin garden,
angels' wings unfurled
and showed her
what had always been.
052100
Static Cling
I have no form.
I lack the grace
as I fall back into place
with the puzzle pieces
I've collected over time.
One more to tie,
one more day to lie
and wait to die.
Reach over me.
Teach me to believe
I can trust you again--
not necessarily that we'll just be friends
but that I don't have to check in crazy ways
to see what you meant today.
Is love the blurring greys of my blacks?
I never thought I'd want them back.
My whites I don't even remember having
my way.
Come over
because the static
I hear on the receiver
clings to the reasons
why I won't let go.
What more can I show?
Why won't you be the believer?
052100
Different
It was different when I had to get to
know you again.
I had to reread your pages cautiously
to find interjections
I could provide
to sharpen your plot.
It was different when I was alone with you
because you eventually gave me rights
to your glowing soul
late at night.
Maybe I was just clumsy.
It was different when you first kissed me,
for I was scared.
I was missing
something from my senses.
It was different when I told you "I love you"
because I finally knew what it meant,
and I was ready to share.
It was different when you mentioned her name again.
I felt myself slipping.
But the fall was just the same.
It was different when you said good-bye
because bad intentions were missing.
It was different when I missed you:
a similar pain
but an older mind.
It was different when I hid away
because this time I had faith
you would come around--
or at least check-in.
It was different when you left
because we were looking for ourselves
but found each other.
Now you've stolen away with direction;
my feelings now I cannot mention.
It was different when my tears stung
because they were bittersweet
but thankful I had gotten the chance
to breath you in again,
hold you close again,
and watch my love shatter and bend.
Maybe I felt different because I thought we were the same.
051900
No, I don't think you understand.
The way you set me down
to essentially say you were wrong,
that you did not know what you were feeling,
that you only felt what you were seeing,
that nothing meant much more than healing,
that we would have to take turns grieving.
Before, I used to wander
because I was wary of the time it would take for me to falter
once more into someone's trap.
And then I saw you wrapped in someone else's net,
so I had to free you.
You were free
when you were with me.
And I found myself in you.
I thought you had too.
Instead I was jaded by the stars in your eyes;
I was glazed by your ivory hands.
I wanted to feel through them.
I wanted to see you
how no one else had--and I was considering
giving you what no one else had seen
in the same light.
It came tumbling down tonight.
When I touched you, did you feel it?
When you read this, did you see this,
did you relive this, did you believe it--
you did it again.
And maybe I let you.
I'd be your martyr to have you--
but now I'm left to die by your hand,
right between the eyes.
To think I believed the lies--
that I reconsidered my stand.
I don't want no replies.
No, I don't think you understand.
052000
As You Lay Beside Him
The day after is always strangest.
You gave your heart and soul
in one fit of passion,
but now you're linked forever;
whether it's through memory
or a tunnel into the future,
you've come too far
to not know where you are.
You might remember yesterday
but never in the same way
will you be pining to feel him
from the inside.
You are here.
Something died.
There he sleeps.
And you are waiting
to know why he keeps shaking
there on your bed.
All you see is red
and his ivory hands on his head.
Why aren't they smothering you now?
050600
what am i supposed to think?
More prolific than I.
Do your words lie
as you lie there...?
I'm swallowing your smell again
as if your presence were Penicillin.
Nothing man, always coming and going
to leave another part
of our sorry memory...
lying away; wasting today--
never.
To make up for too many yesterdays.
I play bittersweet songs
that are suddenly back in tune.
I've got inspirations
but still no moon to help me rest my head.
You once wished me dead,
but I never regret.
Forget you now--
I don't know how.
050400
i've been lying to myself too long
He has me cornered
in the worst way possible--
where I can no longer explain myself
in the poetry exchanges
that have been more true
than I have been to my heart in a while.
I'll counter his prying questions
with pounding questions of my own...
which I would love to begin answering
without hearing the pounding in my heart
when he merely breathes.
It's harder now to leave.
050400
Words are stupid;
look into my eyes. ~REM