Friday, August 12, 2011

"Heart of Mine"

Well this time your alabaster stone don't make me wanna stay
and your crystal waters don't keep me at your bay
I just can't spend my life climbin' up your castle stairs
and anyway you wouldn't believe the odds those people gave to me back there
look and see the saints are just posing
and the graveyard gates are closing
on you and me and everything I'm leaving behind
ah honey babe anyone can have anything, but why'd you take this heart of mine

I see you got those turquiose eyes now you're lookin for your crutch
to do for you everything that you used to say would be too much
baby I would've walked 20 miles just for one smile from a friend
and now it seems you'd do anything to prove I never loved you then
But honestly don't we both know
it was never my idea to let us go
but one night I said hello and you left to run and hide
so honey babe these days I'd do anything to take back that heart of mine

Remember when I had seven hungry hounds at my heels
and a devil at my back saying none of it was real
now you come up to me like you never once fell
or told me stories you knew I'd believe were yours' to tell
when every night that I cried
you were sitting safe inside
thinking about your condition or depression or the meaning of life
honey babe but all the while you must've known all you did was take this heart of mine

So don't ever expect me to crack and crumble at your iron door
or break my heals on cold hard gravel following you no more
looks like my life is rolling somewhere further down the road
the one that once crossed your street but now wanders all alone
but don't you know it's okay
if you never saw the light of day
shining through the valley where you used to drive me outta my mind
cause honey babe I'm taking everything and more than that you're gonna lose this heart of mine

Sunday, August 7, 2011

This might be finished now...

Speak to me
I see
I see the grass and the herb
I see the ink and sun on the page
I feel the black naked trees sleeping
I hear the creek laughing below me and my friends
I hear you singing thru the white walls I covered in obscenities
I hear my nails scratching at your door
I feel the bars of iron growing cold
I saw a stray cat and I thought of me
I saw the ring around the moon and I thought of my longing for you
I see the rocks where we stood open in just our skin
I felt chest pains and hunger pangs and I wanted to climb up your hair
I saw me break before you
I heard you whisper
I heard you suffer
I heard your footsteps drifting up the stairs the night you walked away
I felt the dry skin of your open palm
and the chambers and the bones in your chest
I saw you sitting breathing still with your back straight against the frigid bark
I felt the wet earth under me when I fell and bruised my legs and arms
I saw you staring into me
I saw the hair on your shoulders
I heard the tears in your throat
you never heard me pray
but I prayed for you and waited

I've watched you disappear
I've watched you undrape
I've bowed my head and I've cursed your name
I've stayed up all night listening to Janis and wailing 'you don't know, no you don't know what it's like to love anybody the way I love you babe'
I was cruel to you because you made me feel like being cruel to you then I begged to come inside
I told you a lie
you didn't tell me everything you knew

I embraced the pounding of the desolate sea where martyrs are drowned until I needed a home
I sat at your feet but you still felt alone
I've watched you walk down the same streets I did and the same streets I didn't
I saw arms of light through the fiery trees before the smoke and the air took them away
I tried to leave you and I saw the cracks in the sidewalk and the faces in the cars
and the weeds and the wood and the dust on the street signs
I spat and lit another cigarette and ran
til I purged by a white picket fence
I kicked at the broken glass
when I came back you were gone
it was dawn
you were tired, I was burning
I was burning
I was burning

but I know I was dancing in that small cafe
and your shirt was open as the band played a rhythm I'd never known before
were we drowning, I don't know
sometimes I was flying
sometimes I wonder if you could feel me trying

I felt the bricks of the columns
I felt the heat and the winds from last summer's storm
I felt the thorns and saw the blood of 98 wounds running from our veins
I felt a goodbye that never really came
I felt the night and I watned to share it with you but only if you wanted to
I wanna hold you if you want me to, only if you want me to
please say you want me to
I'd do anything, but I don't wanna do just anything
Why do I follow you?

2
Why did I follow you to a desert out west in a machine filled with five unfinished souls
where I got sick in the snow of carson city and you couldn’t even hold me up much less let me lie down next to you
where you roamed while I trembled under sweat stained once white cotton sheets in a overcast afternoon cheap hotel room
why did I follow you
all the way to a bus station in Reno where you and all the rest left me with 40 bucks and a thousand tears and went on to your own california I would never see
as i was kicked onto the street jilted and at the point of dehumanization
sneeking into the Sands with strangers then standing at the window staring at the Circus Circus, this time the lights of the city did nothing for me and will never do anything for you

One night on the cold carpet and then a bus alone alone alone back to Boulder where I met you
and in Boulder I was angry
and in Boulder I was unbearably unstable and internally paralyzed
in Boulder my insides shattered and the glass I hurled shattered and my spirit shattered and tenderness for you shattered
so in Boulder I wept
and in Boulder I forced my hand in the fire
and in Boulder I crossed sentences with flesh and shadows of revelations never found
in Boulder where you once saw me cry in a summer soft lamplight hallway of death and brilliant life and goodbye
in Boulder where you once placed your hand on my stomach and told me to breathe when suffocation or hyperventilation seemed to make so much more sense
in Boulder you held me to the sun after a night of stolen whiskey and a seed that made me see fireflies that illuminated the path to you and your silence
in Boulder you pressed my tangled head to your chest and i could exist with you and feel with you the heart in me that in the end only scared you and scarred you and left me sighing into my bended bare knees in my lonely hangover sunrise bathtub
in Boulder you mourned your disposition and neurosis and loss of the want of love while my insides twisted with emptiness and begged for warm milk and a one night surrender
in Boulder I held your hand to no avail
in Boulder I swallowed more visions than you could take
in Boulder and everywhere else I recalled when you were angelic and didn’t mind if I got weary or shakey sometimes
in Boulder oh God I fell for you and yearned for your German torso and shy young hips and your cerulean patient eyes that had seen the cruelty of New York and the openness of me standing naked in the middle of so-and-so’s apartment amongst bootlegged jugs of Carlo Rassi and smoke where I performed a drama that continues to this day
but all I really wanted was for us to finally have eachother completely
finally earthly beings completely in a field of lightning and rain
in Boulder I ached for the light of your bed while I bled behind dumpsters and woke to find streaks of red across the heart of Dawn that never promised anything but another prophecy of Day
in Boulder I gave you a daisy
in Boulder your smell made me so painfully human
in Boulder I showed you my soul
and in Boulder I wanted you to tear my skin to pieces so I could weep your dreams and see us rise over cities of stone and ruin and dance like madness and make love like madness and fall asleep in eternity by the river where we died
and where I will die once again

3
But please hear me
I know the two of us just don't fit
you never told me where we stood...but I guess you never knew and neither did I until tonight.
you never really knew me and damn it all to hell if you ever let me finally know you.
You don't like the way I chain smoke on a sunny day or cold morning or after a couple shots of Jack and one long conversation that ends up meaning nothing.
You don't like it when you ask what's wrong and I tell you.
You don’t like the stories I have to tell and I’ve heard all of yours’ a million times and anyway you only have the one
You can't stand to see me kiss a stranger after a hard night of introspective terrors and leaving me with too many maybes and sighs
You regret that promise you made to me, the only one I ever believed in
You get scared whenever you see me hanging from a branch or howling my spirit away on some grimy stage all hurt and free.
You used to look at a busted car or a bruise and say it's beautiful, but when it came to me and you it was never about beauty or anything that would have brought the two of us any kind of release or salvation.
You used to walk with me
You used to stay…
You hate the way that you left me and you hated the way I stood on my hind legs when you came back to tell me things a stranger could’ve said
When you held me it was only because I seemed lost enough and tamed enough to make it safe for you to hold me.
You loved me only when I was your wounded sparrow or baby wolf gone astray.
I came on too strong and too willing
your apologies fell to the hard ground where they were easily trampled like neglected roses blown away from their home in a graveyard .

Now me. . .well, it was never about me was it? There was no me; there was only you, and the you that you saw in me.
I was never there.
I was never anywhere, no matter how hard I tried. Now for that, I would never blame you. That should make you happy, knowing how much you claimed to hate blame in any form.
What do I want from you? A month ago I would have wanted you to die.
But tonight. . .take your walk to the creek.
Watch it flow and tumble and wash over your hands; I remember how fond you were of metaphors. Just know I'm not gonna be the tramp sitting on the cold sturdy rocks by your feet anymore.
I will not set myself on fire for you anymore
I will not let you relate to my loneliness anymore
Neither of us is Mary or Christ and I will not call on any angels or send you any prayers over the ruins that I was hurled into anymore and I will not let you touch me where it hurts.
I'll get mine. After all, if you can stand all this so can I.
I would never even ask you to remember me, but God damn it all to hell if I should ever be able to forget you.