Redact

Her head keeps on spinning.
She sees her ends and her beginnings,
that little devil on her shoulder, grinning,
and her patience ever thinning.
She walks on her wire,
her situation dire,
as the flame of her fire
grow higher and higher
and the blood in her veins
does boil to her brains.
Her heart remains,
for safe keeping, in chains
for it is known to run rampant
and follow a foul scent
without her consent
and much to her discontent.
It beats against its bony bars,
imprisoned far beneath the stars
all because it caused her scars.
Empty wine bottles and out of tune guitars
decorate her bedroom walls.
Her hands shake and no one calls
and, to its knees, the circus falls.
In mirrors in run down bathroom stalls,
her reflection is refracting,
expanding and contracting,
expounding and redacting.
Her time, subtracting.
Her idle eyes rest teary
and her bones grow weary.
This waste is ever so dreary,
but you're out there faking cheery.
In far off rooms you sit and stare,
explaining how it was all fair.
So sit yourself lonely there,
but don't show your face 'round here - no, don't you dare.


************************************************************

I've been working on this for a while. Sorry for my apparent absence. Things in the office have been madness since February. I'm not sure if the end of it is really that close either, but I'll still write when I can!

Apparently, I've been listening to / thinking about Counting Crows a lot.






"Waiting here for you, wanting to tell you how I get my ends and my beginning mixed up too, just the way you do, thought if I told you, you might want to stay for just another day or two" - Counting Crows High Life
 
"I'll kiss you again between the bars." - Elliott Smith Between The Bars
 
"My hands they always shake and no one's calling my phone. So what does that make me?" - Kevin Devine Ballgame
 
"This circus is falling down on its knees. The big top is crumbling down. It's raining in Baltimore fifty miles east. Where you should be, no one's around." - Counting Crows Raining In Baltimore
 
"Well everybody knows your name ’round here, but that’s alright and everybody learned your game ’round here, but that’s alright. You told me if I stayed ’round here, you’d find a good enough place to hide, but I see you. I see you. So come on out tonight." - Kasey Anderson and the Honkies (but I only actually know the Counting Crows cover) Like Teenage Gravity

Our Ties

I'm listening to the songs
I shouldn't listen to
in a room near the sky
that doesn't have a view,
so if I close my eyes up tight,
through the fog, I still see you.
You're out there in the world,
whistling right on queue.

You get to breathe
while you let me choke
and you're shiny and new,
but I'm old and broke.
I'll try to forget every word
to me that you spoke:
so I guess that the end
of the world is a joke.

Scars are ghosts
of pains that once were
and dreams are realities
with a filter and a blur.
I feel you sometimes, still,
and my stomach does stir.
I wonder and reason
and plead to infer.

But now I have found
more perfect eyes
and more perfect hands
and more perfect thighs.
I have language
greater than lies.
There's really nothing broken,
after all, except our ties.

************************************************

This poem is about letting it hurt, but not letting it run you into the ground. It's about the weird dichotomy of moving on with shadows and phantoms still lurk over your shoulder. It's about being crazy, but - at the end of the day - still being just sane enough to function. But, overall, it's about those rare, perfect moments when your brain stops stirring and your hands stop shaking and your feet hit solid ground.

Or it's about whatever you need it to be about.







"It's taken so long to feel like a kid again. All my clothes are ripped, my channel was skipped: I was shiny and new back then." Socratic The Critics (Oh, yes I did.)

"If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts." Counting Crows Mrs. Potter's Lullaby

"Spring blooms and you find the love that's true, but you don't know what now to do 'cause the chase is all you know and she stopped running months ago." Death Cab For Cutie Your Heart Is An Empty Room

"Remember that the only things we need sometimes are chilly nights and warmer thighs 'cause there's nothing like being held." Saves The Day Hold

Little Doubt

When your eyes are closed,
your mind won't sleep.
Old figures haunt and hover
and wince and weep.
They reach out to touch,
but they scratch you deep
and they whisper sweet-nothings,
but talk is cheap.

So, you think that you're quite
over it now.
It's a promise you've made
to yourself, a vow,
and those voices are faint
so you disavow,
but you're not sure of who or what
or even how.

Yet, gentle hands and soft eyes
help to remind you
that Good comes
in batches of few
and far between,
but true.
Somewhere in your heart you guessed,
but never knew.

Let time drag your
old habits out,
kicking and screaming
and whaling about.
Lay history to rest
and take a different route.
In gentle hands and soft eyes,
let there be little doubt.

******************************************

I've been quiet for a while. Oops. Life has been life-y and busy. Lots of things have changed since the last time I posted anything (back in November), both personally and professionally. Whether by fate or by luck or by accident, I'm taking a new path.

I wrote this last week, but things at work got crazy last week and I never got around to appropriately tweaking it until now. It's about how you'll always have your demons, but you shouldn't shut out your saints.








"I try to will myself away while shouting habits plead their case. So when the sun sears through my eyes, my beggar's brain can't compromise. I splash cold water. I draw the curtains. I stay inside." Kevin Devine You'll Only End Up Joining Them

"But I'll walk my own road. I'll go where you won't go. You won't put me through hell. 'Cause now I see through you. Believe what you need to. Go haunt someone else." - Kevin Devine Go Haunt Someone Else

"I don't want to live like I'm dead anymore, so keep that away from me." Kevin Devine Wait Out The Wreck