good morning from the north coast
where i ran a hurricane through the wash
and hung it up to dry
before i chased a fever down a battered thermostat
to sneak a swap between its truth to my lie

welcome to the north coast
where all the older all the golder
even if it was once nightmare black
we here do have a habit of missing what we lack

where i stretched to touch the morning, to find it so closely out of reach
and did the laundry once more
drowned the daytime dark with bleach

with another voice, seasoned, worn, hurricane-ripped but not tornado-torn
fidget still in my fingers, sore still in my head, still
beginning upon a realization, only further away

drift, so it drifts, the push is a blessing
till sore turns to burn and fidget becomes seizure shake
till all good things worn out with season-anticipated break

and no break is a good break, no efficiency is deficiency, deficiency is lack
lack is no good and no good is evil

and evil is darkness and darkness was meant to be bleached
if all good-really-but-bad-really things could be survived
as lessons but to teach

and how many more? till my voice loses hold again?
till all hope comes loose? cog in the machine and the machine hates itself too?

till chapter begins with over till book reads end

till i found myself another war to tend. till the summer thins and the fall rains begin to pour

once more, it's flooding out my door

and door keeps evil but not from coming in
keeps my own mercilessness trapped deep within

and within leaves room for thought but fall leaves fall

and drown in my admission, or don't bother trying to make it out at all

and delusion is my saviour and delusion is her crown

till all my good promises became people to let down

and i love you my baby, i love you with good will
and good intention. and all the seams i tried to sew

but there was so much more you did not know

incoherence, cold spoons, feeding myself off pieces of myself lodged acutely on the tip of my brain's tenderest sense

i don't have time to cope, i tell everyone
but i do make time on my own to mourn
to cry for the lost memory i used to play again and again
with obsession, with burning resolve
till every nook felt rummaged and every crack felt filled

i call it futile
because today i only remember playing it over and over again
and yet not a clue what "it" is

I thought all this time that understanding was currency and it would
buy me reciprocity, it would buy me good faith
so i gave and gave till i deflated like a balloon
going from full and heavy to nightmarishly empty so quick and so soon
you know me well, so treat me well!
but you don't, you don't. my hell and your hell spell a hell of a hell. you know it and you wish you didn't
so it is now a bigger injustice, i can't lay blame on ignorance, you know it now
a truth interchangeable with yours! i'm hurting! i'm hurting!

you're a part of the fire now!
that can only mean i am a part of yours.

so you got it all along and it didn't save me.

it's been a while since I had it in me to stop talking to someone like this
probably things stopped making sense, and that's what makes sense now
I know it seems abrupt but I'm finding other things more disjointed than that
Like there's a space between what I expect to find when I turn to look at it
and what I actually find staring at me back
and I'm uncomfortable, I'm really really uneasy, but it feels easy to
call it home and be done with it. But people remind me
how good it is to forget. Funny how they think, that forgetting is escaping
when history repeats itself and I'm going to
be shocked again and I don't want to do that anymore.

i'm here on an edge of a thought i used to long entertain  

i loved to swing my legs out the window pane

our ocean ***** the water and spits the rain
and i loved this city all the more and all the same

in those days i was more
i was more

i was vain

so today just put me out of my pain
before this hollow town swallows me
vein by vein

but gives me that cue first
to prompt us both to look up
at the clouds, that same old sky
we were together for days but this one...
it tastes

different

waning, i've seen moons do it
waning, i've seen candles do it
but i can't watch this

crying without crying
laughing to fill the room
because small talk
isn't big enough
and see you soon
doesn't mean
see you soon

but small shrinks too
i've got so much to empty talk to

and I don't miss that storm
(I'm lying. I miss that storm)
or maybe i miss the chase and
the holding hands that came as it passed

i never run but i did it then and there
because you pulled me past so much already
and i knew the only way to get out of it was to get out with you

you're my oldest
i scratch out all the firsts before you
but you have no youngest
and i know i'm a child

the trees and the bridges and the humid
in Toronto it all smells the same
i hope you liked it too

we did it best when we turned our time into a playground
and it's finally almost right
that i want to swear to you on something

that you don't miss the storm
please let me tell you, and trust me on this
you don't miss the storm

i miss you helping me out of it i miss helping you out of it
but we don't miss the storm and i can't think outside of it either

it's all foggy now and you offer to stay to help but damage is damage and
baggage is baggage

and i'm travelling guilt-free this year

yet i'm sad and i'm sad and i wore down the led of the pencil you loaned me
to write about that

and forgiven once but never twice i say
and trip me up, so do it, that's a cost i'll pay

but i've got no money to pay for that now
and i miss you
and i miss you

but i don't miss the storm

I think too much
you said that, right?
I think too much, I feel too much
I am too much?
is it the excessive pull,
or the half-hearted tug
that starts to bug you first?

is it all the push, baby? is it
all the push?
cause i know when you ask me
plain and simple
it comes out tangled and wrong

so you say // what do you want
well, i want fair and square
but then i want to
spin you in circles
to learn my way around

you pull tighter to my hand
closeness. dizzy. closeness here closeness now. i miss it.
do YOU miss it.

God I miss it I miss you
I miss this

then you say I'm making you dizzy
always keeping that knife close around
but you hold me in those moments like i want you to.

he said:
you are the type to turn to an empty crowd  and scream
         you are my people.
look them in the eye you would and
scream YOU are my people.
and i just wonder, man, do you see people there? in the emptiness? what do you see that makes you say those things?
or is the emptiness your people. do you see people.

it's long before he asks again
please baby do you
do you
do you
do you

YES my God. YES
yes yes yes YES i see people.
in people i see the empty.
and in the empty i see people.
and here i have to turn to them to tell them
when they most feel like they don't belong
that they are my people. and with me in my
soul they are always home. and though i am weak
and i can't carry the world i can
carry these people.

i guess it was always this cold every
winter but i never fully realized 366 days
later this is exactly where i'd be again

i say goodbye to it every year and i
take whatever veil everyone makes for me
to throw it over

we all want to start over

but it's here that january starts to cry on my shoulder
i liked this shirt, and i liked to keep my heart on its sleeves
but i let her cry until i feel each shoulder freeze

knowing this year was a bad one and
that she's lost a lot

(this entire time i think: ***** you. ***** you for hurting her)
(but i also want her to forgive)

the entire time wishing i could have her back
and soon i'm having a panic attack

my hand over her now
under my breath i'm praying
i wish i could take the weight off her
i wish i had plainly had more
to offer
i wish i had it in me to say i could stop her

from everything but mostly from her own suffering
even months away i'm so ****** cursed
to already see the sadness buffering
her software overload

switching her hardware up thinking it would do us any good
when the world will still spin and the events planned
will still happen as they should

all i do is hold her and hold her fists
away from her eye
stop rubbing them while you cry
she said she'd have worried about wrinkles too
if she didn't plan to die

i'm getting too old to ask her to justify why

every year i get asked
  please won't you please
  keep this boulder?
i need it to stop me from getting older
please won't you please?     i want to stay on your shoulder

and every year she says:
don't **** my dream don't **** my hope don't **** my illusion
unless you want me dead too

i said this year i want this and i want you
but
keep that february away from me
if you want it gone i want
all of it gone

she said
i might not be right but i can tell that
that is wrong

(and she adds
i wish instead i was
left
cause i need you going and i need you gone)

but i'm
hanging tight
hoping my heavy burns down to your light

no , light
lightest lit light
stop me turning everything into
a fight

no light
isn't that winter?
yes
wake up
it's winter it's march

you know what i want to say?
i'm waiting for sweet april days
roll around fast paced craze
and all her showers i'm waiting for
i'm itching at stories because i can't wait for more
and thank april for the showers for the flowers for the
bloom for the
run around turn around
find yourself hanging on her
every move

till May said May
till May said
you may May
you may stay you may be mine
you, may,
be mine

you maybe
mine

you, maybe mine

just for a few days more

till june comes around to hack and **** up my door

unsturdy but there
one against the problems door against the thought door against
the dizzy door against the rot

so  hinges slipped and hinges slid
and nothing felt heavier than
my eyes, right shut close they did

i was holding in the only way i knew
i was keeping up before i blew

i was keeping in as much as i could
i was holding on more than i should

and tell july she was ugly

and tell her if i hadn't been too busy crying
and too busy sad
i would've been mad

dare she
did anyways
and poked me in the eye

she said

they have to be open

i said

you're the one trying to **** me now

she said august is here and
you missed it fighting

i said i missed myself
more than i could ever imagine
and i feel myself
on seven clouds
at once

she said i know who you're talking about and give her four days
she's going go away

i nodded
but i knew it couldn't be true
this was a form of me as much as it was all i cared to say i knew

till friend my friend called her friend to call my friend friend to call around and say that i found myself
at the edge of myself and i realized much of the ******* up and i realized more than sorry
and i remembered big guilt filling up pools of myself and
incapacity to swim and
overcrowding
means drowning

in august i remembered how ugly
i could be in the rawest form of myself

and i spent 2 weeks with my hands on a blade wondering
when the day would be that i'd ditch
the body

i was possessing feeling and thought and i was
something more than that

i was surprised to read in my journal that this was something i thought consistently about

so if i were to let go it'd be the body it'd be
the mind and i'd let them die
the only way my spirit could ever learn to fly

and body got weaker call me
weakest on the plane
but september came here right back and
she came back quite like the best
hug attack

no hack no more she said
no need for
a door

she came back to say i'm here! she came back to say i missed you!
and i missed her too i missed you so much i love
you so much i love myself i am superwoman i am
superwoman today

she said you are superwoman everyday jesus
christ you have no idea what you've missed

i said i love you i love you i love you don't you
dare go away

and friend called friend and friend called friend
till the sad came around to finally
shove me again

locker of myself i thought
bullies were insecure

but she looked me straight in the eyes with words
and a voice that made me know she was sure

i didn't even say hi to her this time
so don't give me crap
i hate her
as much as you do


and i was thinking out loud to my best friend to
please just make her go away make her go away

but stupid idea because i stayed for months
in a bed
with her
in my head

so month beat month till month turned month
happy birthday month happy
anniversary month
marking days
i knew what it
was for

and in october i swore i
was feeling it come on this year mild

but november was so cold and december
looks at me in that way that january felt
and i knew it wasn't innocent enough to leave me alone

i can't defend you january i am so sorry this is
so much bigger than both of us

i'm just so sorry to have not kept my promise to you

full disclosure:
1) i don't know whether coincidences are real or not.

2) bad timing, i badly want to call it that.
ultimately it comes down to not really knowing whether it is or it isn't and what this is... is really just a whole series of what-ifs no one ever prepared me to answer. the truth is that i don't know if i'd have only figured out what was going on later or if it was going to happen this year no matter what i did. but i tried my best, i hope every version of me in the future believes the person writing this right now that i did what i thought i could to stop what i felt was about to happen, happening. i had a weird feeling this entire year about what was happening to me. i know i saw it coming. anyways i should be sorry and, i'm not going to lie, i am, even though sometimes i am reminded by good people that it isn't my fault. that might be true. but i am still sorry. even my dream me gives me **** for it.

3) this is the most ironic thing to happen so far, but i think i say that every year. at least i do, in my head. i kept saying what's gone is gone and what's going, should. but i won't pull it back or push it to go like i used to. what's happening is happening, mantra or no mantra, i am not reducible.

4) i've been weak and i've been strong, left and right and wrong. and let me be honest that this year has been fire in my veins and let me be truthful that i had people beneath me to put out some flames. i realize somehow that this isn't the worst river i've drowned or will ever drown in and that isn't even close to being the hottest hell i've escaped from. it is tiring to think it could be worse and terrifying to think it could be better before i see the thermostat turning itself up again. before all that i love burns again.

5) conflict. they teach you about it in literature. there's different types and somehow i've made myself familiar with them all. some people egg me on, they like that i'm a fighter and they think i can fight bad things away for them. someone told me that i was their guardian moon and i got so high off the idea that i could be something like that for someone one day. and to be told that i already was sent me onto that higher plane. i know i'm not holy or divine but i can do something like that and i know God would call it worship.

6) sooner or later people piece together that a fighter's struggle goes both ways, that someone like me could turn on them at any moment. that sounds very spontaneous and unplanned and i don't want to deny that i am. yes i am unplanned but i swear also that i am always on standby. and i can feel the explosions going off inside me a million times over, but i am helpless to stopping it. and before i know it i am set off and before i know it people are hurt. i wish i could warn people i was about to blow up. but i also wish people could warn me they plan to push me to.

7) i can't help but serve the worst part of me the best part of me. does that make sense? you get what i'm saying? the worst part of me literally feeds on the best part of me. and guess what. the best part of me is a faulted one! she is BLIND, she is LIGHT and she is straight up DELUDED. she gives herself way too much credit. she told me she could save all of us but she's wrong. don't take her word for anything. she'd have you believe the sun is out in the dead of the night.

operator
pick me up a fix me up

pick me up at 6 and pick her up too


he's calling me but i'd rather talk to you


and won't you also shut the backdoor too
i'm having a private conversation

you have to stay outside

but don't leave me i'm
going through a bad time in my life

operator operator pick me up
don't you dare drop
this call
i don't ever want to be
without you at all

operator operator call me back i

am having a panic attack

dad called me names

i know you can hear
i know you're always here

operator operator i believe
in you

operator operator i believe in this system


i need you to come through

i see you leave
before you go

i see
you
leave
before
you
go

I got a new nickname it was
Pretty Fire and I felt my cheeks burning
when you said it
So I reached out to hold your hand and realized
All of you was burning

I should've realised you didn't call me warm, or bright
I was a pretty fire
forcing the world into an unfair fight

Not an offer they had the choice to refuse
The kind of fight they'd have to lose

Playing with fire never hurts the fire

Every day I burn too
trying to tell you that's not true
When you hurt
My skin turns blue

I have to fight though
everyone. i'm sorry that it includes you

people fight fires all the time and
i need to fight them too. they hate me
i'm trying to prove to you
they hate me
and i hate me too

but none of that was ever enough to scare them away
when there's stupid firefighters trying to put people out everyday

i'm blamed anyways
i'm blamed for when i have a fit
when you ignored it
FOR SO LONG

so don't call me fire because I know now what you you were trying to say
I am a fire and I hurt everyone in my way

I was a fire and to be me I had to damage
I was a fire and it was so much baggage
I was a fire and it hurt to look at me

so you gotta go where you think you'll be free
so good, go, and leave. let me be

Cause I know what I didn't mean to be

I didn't mean to be the retrograde
To make you
turn around and meet the friend I've made
I like to call her really late
I like to call her the Me I Hate

I like to call her
I used to like to call you
Call me sometime soon

honey i've got a rhyming boom box attitude
aptitude
gratitude
fill me up like  a garbage chute

running backwards like i'm kinda cute
getting honked at to tell me
to get out of the way

well Mr Driver that's not very nice
i'm not yet a big girl
so don't fight my fire
with your deadass ice

grab tug grab
i'm telling you over and over i have
this memorized

hey means play
applause at pause
cop means stop

empty

6) i am not stubborn
i am not stuck
i am not doomed
i am not cursed
i am not powerless in the face of others

5) i will not be bitter about the cards that i have been dealt
i will not assume
i will give
i will take
i will be

4) i can still live without the things that are important to me
i can still change
i can still dream
i can still accept others into my life

3) i am willing to make amends with those i have hurt
i am willing to move forward from damaging experiences
i am willing to try different solutions

2) i am constantly learning
i am constantly changing

1) no one is out to get me

i've got a body stuck in my body
help me, someone
please, somebody
please somebody, i'm calling somebody
I'm Calling Somebody, I'm Calling Somebody
don't you know I'm ruddy? sitting in the muddy
patches of grass, grass always loved me
Grass Always Loved Me
I got High before You Called Me
Grass Always Loved Me

if you were interested,
I'd say I was too.
looking outward
      finding  eyes that didn't shy away
back at me
the strongest feeling there ever was the
strongest challenge you ever were
eyes brown, earthy murky
        sometimes fiery, but icey too
I see, I see too
eyelids heavy  heavy feelings taking over the light
               and it was always something i wanted to know;
What the Day Owes the Night

we watched the sky as it grew
blue again blue is always gonna remind me of you
never another day in the grey. you promised to chase every storm away
       put your palms against mine, that's how we did it first
put your palms against mine. that's how we did it first

And it was here
She said wait till Christmas, this place gets packed
with people and prayers

i hate looking at you that way
like it's useless. like the situation you're in is useless
like the things you're doing to keep it together are useless
like the things you're doing to get out are useless.
but when i watch you scrub until your fingers are rough
and i see what you've been trying to clean
it really does feel useless

she said the irony in tracing back the roots is
in going back
you set yourself further from where you want to be.

Look past
this is the farm we drink up

old country charm coming into your eyes are you rubbing out
light from them are you rubbing out
dreams from them

and all the color still forgives
come back when you choose to see them again

cause here the mechanical story
rubs the gears together till
they're good and churn

faster

if ignorance is bliss then call me ignorant if
reality is false then just call me

I'll call her by name next time I'll call her by name but
for now she's the beast in my head I've been trying to tame for now
she's the game in my head I've been trying to play for now

no sinking! you said
no sinking! in each other
no sinking! in yourself
take all the water out
and pour it in the cup on our shelf

hold my hand
while i'm listening
tears on my face still glistening
i'm gonna take the water out
i'm gonna bury it now
ditch the old grudge corpses in the sand
get these grim haunt planes to land

don't leave, don't leave, and don't make me beg
i could stand on two feet but only trust a leg
so i'll say it in words i'll say it in art
i need you so much! for this ugly part
and you said okay! don't worry! i'm here! okay!
so i buried the worry in my brain
and the scratching in my heart
i said again: please don't leave / please don't leave
i can't! bear! to do this apart!

and yet i knew in advance of the leave to come
soon you'd walk and later you'd run

so i'd prefer to do this as though it was simple fun
with my eyes closed, here's a gun

now, i can't see but you're still here. i hope
i've got a pail. and i've got some rope
and i'm gonna start taking this water out to cope

and  if you decide to leave then you need to shoot me before
cause with you gone i'm gonna feel ugly dead and more

anyways the water is all out of me now
the water went below me somehow
i wanted to ask you are you proud?
but i felt the vapor rise and i felt the form of a cloud
and i know it's gonna come down now
soon

so now i'm tipping the edge and i'm looking down
looking onto the days when the water was a crown
for every glory day i made it through, not for me but for you
and i'm close but i hold onto your oath
well, i'm not gonna drown
really, i'm not gonna drown
though my own words are heavy
and it's getting hard to hold steady
and the rain's acidic and
the water pooling below me is so ******* brown

these ugly words, let me tell you, it's not that easy shove them down
cause they burn holes in my chest
i wished
that they weren't holes from my head
cause it would've been so much easier to explain the toxicity in my lungs
if i'd been just a smoker instead

and i confused it for a dream to finally be able to step away
because like a dream it was intimate and yet far away

and i'm forgetting already

spiral days running around more spiral days
we sit crosslegged, barefoot in that circle to
carefree blaze and look to each other to
find our own happy place
lost in that intensity haze
all of us so good in our blissful laze

don't start counting these numbered summer days

cause we're still basking in the sun
we're still holding onto our gun
we still don't need no one
in our blissful laze, in those spiral days,
yeah we're still clinging to our
shading ways, those pretty shading
ways we used to count the lemon streaks
in each other's hair
to fight the summer sun against the spring's in heated compare

those pretty shading ways i got a call and a compliment in
and if this was a door then yes i'm gonna go in

good, they're finally meeting
that squint in your eyes is agreeing to the greeting
yes say aye to aye, eye to eye, eyes to eyes
God, it's lovely, yes, it's a lovely surprise

and you look so hard at me before you finally say
i love the way i love the way
your eyes droop
like a palm that could form a fruit

you're weird, you know
yes i know, yes i know

don't you worry you say
i love the shimmer i love the glow

and your eyes are perfect mirrors
color pouring    all the sourness clear if there was any
all the sweetness clear if there was any
all the bitterness clear if there was any
and when i looked at you back with that face you knew what i knew
and so thank you

falling into stars, arms
they look like stars when i'm like this
they feel like bars when i'm like this
hanging onto to the ridges
like your edges are bridges
can you tell
i'm wishing upon this

so i'm desperate, and i'm pathetic, and i'm strong, and i'm a fighter
and i'm weak in my place
but i'll crawl and i'll crawl if it's gonna help me save face
and to say it finally, that i need a retreat
from this wavering woven-reality-illusion intersection is bittersweet
cause i love my broken home
called gilded illusion
but i hate my broken home
called burdensome conclusion
and i know there's a fire inside but i wanna knock on this door and say i'm home
and i don't wanna be living in thoughts alone

but burdensome conclusion hear me come hear me speak
why yes these burdens are here, safe arrived, i'm a burden, i'm a burden to be bore
i'll need a little safety security rock hard solid promise yes
and if you have some then i'll need a little more
and i'm gonna lay my head on some starry shoulder
wanna move this ugly reality boulder
just to feel the intoxication of peace again

dangling from these happy heights
no more reality centered "this isn't real" and "i can't feel to feel sorry" fights
i am sick and tired
i am sick and tired
that these loose strands want me so badly tangled in reality

so i'm going to force my hands back into my illusion once again
you know if you were a page then this time i'm gonna hang tight to the pen
feel myself trying to hold onto this chapter of the book i left lying open

thinking well, i didn't need some spells unbroken
thinking well, you ain't going to leave details like those unspoken
thinking i had been literate all my life
before i met the people whose minds were sharper than a knife

and they cut into me and i felt transition from want to need
i felt so sure that the book i was writing was one i wanted to read
until i started to bleed and bleed

and security wasn't just a blanket or a dream
it was
what i needed from now on

when you die in your head
you only think about the things you once said
not
the things you are saying not the things you are doing
not the way you are being not the things you are seeing
it is about the old days on rewind
chapters folding unfolding refolding
always on your mind
always on your mind
but you lost it long ago
so why is there an ache where there used to be thought
why is there an ache where there is supposed to be no feeling at all
why is it light and heavy all at once
foggy light still clear enough to blind you with
and you thought you were staring at a savior
but you were staring at a thing that would prolong your longing
to go back to the old days
this time you're blind this time you're dizzier
this time you don't know any better
but you can remember that you once did.
isn't it weird to make a mistake you used to know to avoid
is it a mistake if it's intentional
is it a mistake if it's intentional
is it a mistake if it's intentional

I looked back at her
it feels tight in my chest it feels
tight in my head

sing to me blue cry to me red
isn't it nicer when we look into not ahead
isn't it nicer when
we hold on instead

or so I said?

before I stretch and hit a hardrock bed
while trying to get that sweet familiarity
in-between
my fingers again

fingers that oughta brush lightly  (but they screech instead)

the nails I have, man, they're thick
and I claw and I claw until I'm sick
of all the hot day cold night fights
who's going to kiss me pretty on the ugly nights
who's gonna help me get high when i'm afraid of heights



I don't want to do this, please
remind me  that I don't

she said you do.
I won't lie, not to me, not to you
and I don't lie (I've never
lied), I've always tried
but I've never lied.
(and that was a lie too)

but she said if we open up any further this
truth is gonna push us black and blue

she said if we open up any further
one of us isn't staying
and it's probably you

and she took a breath and the air was tight again
and i knew for once what she was saying was true

it was mercy it was grace it was
all the ugly tucked away from my face

and i did it? to myself? and i did it? to you?

flash forward
and i'm an apathetic fighter
tracing my finger on this lighter
and if it takes me higher

well i'm gonna be a liar
set two truths on fire
line this world with wire
keep out a real entire

feeling my illusion and i'm glad it's in my hands to hold
when reality hissed at me that i wasn't made to fold and fold
but Habit starts small! and then Habit gets old
and Truth, do tell
and truth was told

so circumstance came as karmic knight
and filled me with so much worry about wrong and right

then circumstance tugged at two loosened strands
and i stood a little too tall before I fell into the worst of hands
dropped into circumstantial moral fight
worrying i got off far too often and far too light

so i go back into old moral grounds
here i feel a dream as it drowns
here i hear a siren as it sounds

and i know consequence didn't make me sorry and it didn't make me contrite
and if there was a thing i picked on it was Justice in a Fight

i'm sorry and i'm trying now

i wish i fought you
harder
i wish i fought you
smarter
i wish i fought you i wish
i fought you i wish
i said things that carried us away
to the battlefield it felt like we were already on

there were years i held
unburied but moving in undetected lingers
before i finally caught them in standstill
sore between my fingers

sore is sore and ache is ache
and i held both in silence for silences' sake
till weight made pressure and pressure made bend
I used to call them my Godsend I used to call them my Good Friend
but bend made break and break bent friend
and weight came back to make me sorry again
cause sorry meant take and take meant give
and give meant I forgive but
you didn't forgive

so came the break between real and fake
so came the merge between real and fake

you say you don't have to go there
don't haunt me like this
so good
so good
so good
because i didn't want to remember more than i should!
and if i could just stop myself yes i would, yes i would
i am so so sorry and if i could feel worse i would
and if i could feel better i would

but it's beyond letting, beyond forgetting
and the hand in all these memory choices isn't mine
the closest thing i had to control was time
the closest thing i had to sense was rhyme

here we have to choose where to store
up on surface? deep in core?
and when i keep it there, you'll finally tell me more

so you say forget and
i let it
sink deeper
ugly rivulet
down my back down my
back

come back to sink me too but
i won't let
anything that has to do with me
do with me

you know deeper isn't better you know
the same thought'll still get her

but it'll have gone deeper now
okay! yes! you're in my face! so i'll say this

yes i don't
remember it! yes it's not on the surface for me to look at it!
but i promise you
when i bury it i hear it saying
it'll come to bury me too

i just felt that i've been up brushing against all the words for a very long time
rubbing on the edge, sometimes it's sharp, usually
it's sharp. always
it's sharp.
they're stupid honestly

and i'm trying to lose myself somehow
and i remember wanting to sand away
the fact that i was another chip off the block another
boat off the dock
another piece of lint another stick of chalk
here's a space here's a space where we can talk

and i wanna start this walk
past the doors i hear it knock

(and i'm going to get on a bus and it's not going home)

and i have been wondering, i said
i have been wondering.

what have you been wondering?
at a time like this?

at a time like this?
I've been wondering if this is close enough for it.

who's going to know?
who has to know.

if this is close enough to feel and if this is
close enough to think and
if there's enough air here
to take you between now and then.

is this what I could be doing to survive? is this what i can live
in between. between the unsaid said and the unseen scene

i can live in-between the times, i said. in-between the times / hoping that since it's been spoken / this stupid spell's gone broken

but first we gotta
hold onto the rope
hold onto these cords
cause they're asking me
you wanna live in the spaces of your words?

i said if i could if i COULD
(oh God if I could)

and there's no hope here not with them
so I say a prayer and I say it fast
cause I need this beautiful life to last
and I need this beautiful hand to hold and I need to stop this terror fold and I need to
let this prayer go
into the air
God I'm so tense here hoping someone out there is gonna care
that I'm sending
for sweet beautiful survival yes have it
Sent please
bring me back to the last Good Place i went please
let me wake up the next morning and hear the Jack
and hack and hack he's going to go I know
this I know
hack hack hack he Went
the last Good Time that we spent
hack hack hack he went
at all the pretty wood
in this nice neighborhood

and i promise myself the next time i tell myself
to open up i'm gonna stay closed
and the next time you tell me to feel
the warmth
i'm gonna stay cold

I don't know what we like to imagine but
I like to imagine that we like to imagine
that nothing ever happened before
the writer put pen to paper, that
the world held still for him, that the world
laid down for him, that the world
raised her arms in open welcome and teeming grace:
here lay your head here i'll hold your face

soon i said we'll be on our way
and soon you said we'll forget today. forget the way
soft-spoken half-hearted things started to mean more when they poured
out into the open air that was between us and all of a sudden we found ourselves waiting on
    the next july-day friday
when we'll be under the same summer bright
light in my eye soft skin this one bruises easy this one burns fast but
we spend enough time dreaming to make it last
dreaming back and in and out again
       soon to remember and later to forget and i'm praying july
finishes with rain and i'm praying august is a full-blown hurricane and
i'm hoping in september you'd still know my name and i'm hoping
october is not too cool for us to be cool with each other.
but so long after these dreams i cling to knowing this story
like it is part of a past i can change

she's here, light. came to pick me up in
gliding synchrony, follow me into melody
     sinking symphony of dangerous dreams and i'm done here after
     i confess that i went into dark rooms looking for her light

here, light. i wish i was holding her in my arms
cause this emotional toll is gonna break the bank
all the redemption come to speak
as world turned black to straining bleak

all i see is    an angel without wings
holding me   closer than ever before    
saying i'm sorry i     don't want you to feel this anymore
and it makes me cry harder
cause she's whispering vows to me under her breath
promising nothing like this is ever going to take me away
   but it will

and even then, my fall doesn't come from being let go

here. holds you closer  still
     till you know the colors
in the colors of her eyes

she brushes my hair from my face and says
          everything about you is just so soft
but times are tough for the dreamers
     and nothing can be replaced

twelve years of this. i said twelve years of this
why were you here all along
    don't you remember how it was before
don't you remember when it started
      she said i'm so sorry
i'm so sorry

                 i love her, i love her
but why is she still here
and who sent her to be my angel?
      the best friend that would spin herself into the same oblivion
just to sit against the wall with me    heavy, sunken all confused
she asked me if i was crying i said i've been dying
to prove to you that i'm trying

just trying to fill my lungs with enough air to ask her
why she still loves me    when i'm like this

but she knows i won't say
    cause i was part of the night and she was part of the day
and even though she owed me nothing  beyond what she's said and done
she still held me and
told me: baby bell i know from time to time    
  i'll hear your chime

and your crying doesn't annoy me. and you whisper cause you're delicate
and you are sensitive to the world. i can hear how deep you breathe. you are alive.
      don't tell me you're dead. don't tell me you can't feel it anymore. when it's too quiet i still hear it
when it's too quiet i still feel you being sad
        and i don't care.
i don't care if you're loud. always.
i don't care. even if you were
            just a bell tolling at 3am or 5.
even if you were. even as you are. always.
i am proud.
you are mine and you are safe and for everything you're sorry for,
     i'm not.

in the corner she put her  hand on my face.
and stared at me for the longest time before
she put the other one too. i wasn't sure where this was going
she had cupped my face and pushed it up a little

before she took a deep breath and said you are a baby right now
i told her i was thirteen
but she said it doesn't matter
growing up is painful
the future is painful
the past is painful
the world suffers every day from
a thousand afflictions, baby.

i said don't call me that
i'm not.
she said you don't know anything
i said i do. i know this.

she said the world suffers every day
every week every hour
even things we can't bear to think, the world endures persistently.
the world overcomes.

she said you need to wait this out.
it gets worse and then it gets better
      i said how long
she said it doesn't matter

you're going to grow up and it's going to hurt
and there's not a thing you can do about it.

i told her to watch me
she said she will. from a strait jacket.

and that's when she told.

i hated how all her advice was useless in this way
and how she always ******* me over in the end anyhow

the day comes in and the day comes out
with all nighttime live and let live, it used to promise me
it used to promise me and i wasn't always this naive but
i used to believe in its potential and it used to probably believe in mine
and what gave me away finally was time

who knew a man could change who knew a girl could too
under that guidance and i always wished that back then i too knew
but vines don't wither vines grow up
and if i had learned one thing it's that people don't shut up

or they do and you make them talk again
before sympathy gives and
they let you in
halfway back in
but who's letting me in isn't in essence letting me win
and you're not the same person who kicked me out
and that's who i wanted to love me

and i know there's some part of you shutting yourself up

i know there's some part of you.

she leaves me alone and like this i learn where to go

glass window
cold glass window
people out look bitty
my hands are on the city
and they're on the glass window

hell to all the windows
cause they block out the good city sound
that blocks my thinking when you aren't around
and i promise To God
i'll stay here before i ask you around
so this is the only way to you that I'll be bound
so to these windows i'll be bound

and you're around
outside probably
walking probably
taking that crisp winter walk
remember when we used to talk

i always liked it when we went on those
just to talk

if they go roll we go rock
if they go hip we go hop
just listening to the sound of the city stalk
just listening to the sound of the city block

by then we'd been going further each and every time
laying down the feet with feet like our own little rhyme

and you had that sweet conversation that you'd pour down my throat
and i had that sweet salvation of the words i bent down and wrote


on the glass window with my fingers on the fog
on the glass window with my tongue in the bog

i knew this and i knew this
i knew this
and i knew this

we walked through october in its falling rain
until a bad day in november came
to fill our december and make a dimming bright light quickly wane
and run wax down our fingertips till we learned each other's achy pain
stupid bad day
made me need to go away

and my january and my february screamed
happy **** birthday to me
happy **** birthday to you
happy valentines day, too.

let me scratch the window i wanna ******* hurt the window
but instead i stand by the window pane
cause i knew this pain and i loved
it anyway

city glass i'm seeing your face pass
church window i still see you at mass

here's the lecture you always skip
here's the professor you like to trip
here's the girl you used to like
once upon a time i poked holes in her bike

but i'm gonna go buy her a sundae today
and i'm gonna get her to teach me about the day
it all went away
as if it was always gonna go away

that's the thing on the tip of my tongue
in a heart i felt nothing

but i had some dawns in me already
breaking truth

that else is not always else
and my self was not always myself
and i trust this and i need this truth

and if it's called selfishness
then i admit it to be
i swear it to be
because a heart where there is nothing else
only comes about for me

an end, i reach, came finally
all that was amind
was mine.

the biggest fog, cloudiest bog
aggregated aggravation
wish i could go around and change the notation

never MIND the abject self-criticality
i mind it the most when you mess with my practicality

cause i'm sick of this big big fog that i carry in me.
you wanna carry this for me?
i carry it for no reason but
an old commitment i used to have for interreality

and this isn't really my reality
this is your reality

so we play, and when we do, we play across the line
and when we cross your faults, they become mine
but like always
i'll take them
it's fine

forgetting i'm already sick of the weather
forgetting i don't know how to make it better
forgetting it forgetting it

filled of others
I'M FILLED with others
of what else?

you say else never was the anti-me
but i fought inner wars to have it reconciled in me

well, in any case,
your else, i used to make it mine

but here i fulfill my own. disown disown disown

cause i've laid no ties to this weaky throne
nor to the cloudy ****** weather i'm gonna have
overthrown

belonging to all these people i asked to leave me alone
by the way, they never left me alone
till i finally left me alone

honey i'm home
honey honey
i'm home
i'm more than skin i'm more than bone
but i'm not you
i'm my own


i keep thinking
if only i had known

if only i had known

let me guess we weren't the first
to sneak out here on our own
to "break the ice"
by raising skin to skin
and bone to bone

to tell all your good friends to leave us alone
when you know i'll tell you to leave me alone

god i always liked the flow that went
getting another life to swallow
without needing to pay rent

just another person to know we were just
other people to know

before figuring whether you were
the person to tell me when to come
or the one to tell me when to go

how do we know we know?
when i only try by saying
i'll try to know

but we look towards each other and
invite the other
to come and be the latest reach
for me to refer in relativity
all true all emotion
leech

and if we could just choose the things that run forever
then let it be the golden feeling i found
in the absence of sound

in the absence of speech

if skin was touch and touch was reach
and reach was sin and sin was breach

and if we pretend preach
could and would make it all better

then were you back here
when you finally got it together
put it all together

and when she tried to ask you to come back
why did you go ahead and get her

gold plated, irony faded
Haded. tell me all the truth unjaded
if it's all meant to be i'd hate it

before i roll on my back and say
do you miss it already
the quiet and the empty
the light without the heavy
the move without the levy
are we going to ever go back

no one asked us to draw each other
but it happened as though someone did.

just doing what we usually did
and loved to do
or so we did
or so we do

this time we don’t hide that we want to stay longer

which in the nighttime especially
wasn't the easiest thing
to stop from wanting to be doing.
so i can't complain

when we were on the grass
with no shoes.
you look at an old star i
think of the old swear jar
in the kitchen,
i was barefoot then too

but silence took ahold of time
or so it reached for it
in a way that said to us that every moment here in peace was stolen
and undeserved

but you say don't worry
we could do this forever
we could do anything forever.

time was hungry but time got its fill
and our honest wanting channelled into a still

we look at the other wanting to turn faces into stills too
hold onto cheeks smudging in a glow
coming from the moon
a moment cast from ghost of stronger love past
asking us to lift the mask

so raise brush, so i do
so raise brush, so do you
to lift the mask, transference task
from moment to leave to moment to stay
forgive the days we went away
i forgive the days you went away
but more there's more i want to say
so took hold of hands they were yours
and spoke to you of emotional cores

knowing  eyes drift
and eyes implore
and you look at me like you did once before
you say be with me. be with me like we used to be
before
but this time it'll be less like this i promise and more like more

so i paint. and again, no one asked me to. but i wanted to
if i had a brush i could
somehow conjure a scene that feels enough
like putting down the mast
here i promise you it'll be safe to walk over it at last
past past
backs back

no one asked me to compose but i
wanted to listen to it again


to feel like i've finally sent aging grudges into spaces
alleys and other dark places

you asked me to do one thing and it was to sew
something i wasn't even sure i would really know
when i thought of us broken but in my hands a needle and thread
it felt like you were right here instead of just in my head
and like this i understood what you meant
if i could just fix us instead

rain gets carried away when
I pray a new kinda gray
into my life the
one where all the black kinda faded away
but stuck around in the residue, stuck around
behind everything I do
she screamed about the holy and I told her it wasn't the right day
to ask me again to pray to ask me again to pray to ask me again to get closer when I was the closest I've ever been in a while and none of it was something I'd ever tell
none of it was something I'd ever tell but I got hurt the last time
that I fell so I told her in pieces about
the peace I was trying to know

can we go back to the days when white seemed too grey can we go back to the days when happiness was more than just a conceptual name can we go back to the days when the old people in the old world come about again hoping screaming and hoping, wishing well, wishing well, all these good tides washing upon us. we were hoping for a different kind of frosty night but this is what ended up happening and we ran with it. ran as our feet pattered the floor ran as our hands tackled the door and this is our makeshift guess for reality's sake.

required home this was our required home
we decided
this was a place we couldn't let go
we decided
this was a place we'd bend
and crack
hack like a lumberjack
till pores erupted in the wood
and we filled this place we couldn't let go
with moonlight glow
seeping in the most
standing on the edge of the moment like a ghost
at the very last hour in the very first night
when we began to call the wood with us in it a home
our dearest home when we
recognized the need for home when we
recognized the need for a place to shelter
when we recognized the heat the swell and the swelter
when we laid in concentrated comfort
in morning sun
baby this is the unloading of a spiritual gun
and you said it could be the most fun. if we stayed
if we prayed. if we
let go of each other.
and then like you said in the script
you started to talk about departure and leave
and you said you had to take yours
but before you did
you said your hands need a place to stay and here
is the place i promised
and here i am not sad to leave you in this world.
and here you can't be in a rush to leave.
and then you took my hands out of yours and placed them on the tree
and then i turned around
and it was only me

softer you said
softer softer softer.
you can't be so hard
you don't have to be so hard.
not on yourself
not on me
not on this

and you say
i know you're clinging with your life to that victim card
and you can and you should
and i can't and won't stop you

but we rage together, on that lifesunk mission forever
i promised that much to you and i swear again that we always will.
i can't keep pretending there ever was another person for
who i'd ****
what hole are we trying this time to fill

here we stare out at that big volcano we nicknamed little hill

and in all those ragers i hear you speak
the same thing again

so here i am saying back to you
   softly      i promise you we'll stop before we break him
here hold my hand i'll say it louder
i promise you we might still live happy without him

and as we lay in my bed
you'd suggested instead
that we rage, rage, rage hard together
against the sorry night
and i'm begging you please fix that broken light
cause i'm a victim of all these stolen nights
in this bed where sleep couldn't cross me even if i had it in me to try
        cause here i lay here i lie
to remember
that this is far too close to where i felt it begin

here you suggested
to fight against the happy time
to hang in the stars
to stare at the new moon
and fly with it back

and i convince you to sway with me
and i convince you to stay with me
and the dance is all ours
and so is the world

and we made it rhyme
every single time
till the love we had for crowds was clear
till they screamed at us    we want you here
all over again till all appointments fell in stacks
hung them over ***** dish racks
here they were screaming for us
turning their backs

we want you back
we want you back

so all the time
all the time, every time
we stand the test
if coming together was trying, then we were trying to stand the test.
and i wonder if all this oblivion would finally put me to rest

would i finally be able to admit
who i'd love better at my best

could you let me have a thought can you let me have a think
in time for when
your next comment takes me to
the brink
of newly oldened short story chapter
that relentless horizon
continuing like they say it will
but always going with a promise
to break off in unforeseeable ending.

here i am on this dawning chapter and i wish i had the certainty to call it ending
because here on this edge all that i see is that
all my life principles
and rules are breaking and bending

here i am on this dawning chapter in awe
of all the system so quickly gone to dust
in awe of all the people for whom i've lost all trust
in awe of all the sorry looks i got that led me to this edge
and encouraged me to stay.
away
from the truth
i am happier, think
away
is where i don't have to hear anything you say.

so let me grow, let me grow, let me grow
further apart till you finally know
that i don't have to know
how pathetic i'm being
how much more truth you're seeing

because this is the only truth
i'll ever reconcile
and i'm going to stay on this edge
a while.

things in our blood things in our skin
poor vein's discarded oxygen
here you are superficial, artificial
on the surface creep
but the rumor's that you also come in deep

your hands are over my face
you say
        your baby face is your saving grace.
and yours can shine. here you are. my favorite star.
asking me can you see, baby, and if you do, near or far.
near or far? doesn't matter. where i am and where you are- whether here, whether far.
whether it be whether it was
or if it will ever be again
when? i don't know whether to say now or then. now or then?
here all the spoil of the nighttime dim comes true
and all the ruin of the daylight is a form of truth too
when i plan on short notice to look at you
here you wonder strongly about the night
here you feel a bit about the day
you turn to ask me to put the lights out and tell you i'm okay
but if that was our issue, would it ever sit long enough in chairs to stain
cause here i ask heaven explain
heaven please explain
that hurt is a face that hurt is a name
and whether it was or whether it be in this case love
your hands are over my baby face
and i really cannot see