temperance

when your red boots hurt your feet
and frosting sounds so sweet
but you're still blinking tears in the sun,
i'll come, buy you new gold wings
and shiny things
(but nothing can compete with your hair)
and our escape tonight made the great escape,
like the wind under superman's cape
(no capes, darling!)
and you're smarter than that.
it will all pass.

eclipse

i want a tiny white crescent tattooed on my palm.
i want to remind myself every single day
that so very much is so very temporary.

i want to remember that i am only mortal,
that no venom will heal my heart if i let it stop beating

the sunny days come faster now,
snowdrops and crocuses poke out of the ground,
and i can sing as loud
as i goddamn please
and the stars hear me
and shine proud.

we none of us can leave this world alive
so i will not try (to die, a lie)
but i will (to live, to give, to love)
become
something for the moon
to be proud of.

carmen lena bridget tibby

our mothers are still breathing
and it's you that i truly cannot breathe without
the only one i know like the back of my hand.

for a while, i think i forgot to be grateful for you
and i am very sorry about that
since, in the end, you knew
and you are everything i should be grateful to

we are only us.
it is so much more than enough.
it is something i can truly, truly trust.

you broke me

please don't forget it
even when i create such a semblance of normal.

i can see land from here
where we're treading water together, sort of
but you can't see the end.
i'd stay and fight the sharks with you
(we're still both bleeding)
but you want me to leave so very badly
couldn't stand if they tore me apart
that you'll drown me to wrestle them alone.
it doesn't matter who gets the better bargain here.

i will chase those flowers downstream to the sea
the further i get, the less i'll look back
maybe you regret that.

the only silver lining i see
is that i can't wait to wash
that metaphorical lipstick stain
from your metaphorical mug.
(in the meantime,
i monopolized pity and their love.
i am still rather sorry about that.)

whether the playlist ended or when i couldn't respond
you felt the silence, what you'd done
i am working on cauterizing this wound

maybe we should become arsonists together.

something i could have written in middle school

this is me
poised ready to jump headfirst into something new
since now, thanks to you
there's nothing to hold me back.
and i can leap without looking first
just like i said i should
in the essay they actually read.

there are strange faces here,
in the rain,
but i know that beer
will kill any lingering pain
and our reunions may be bitter,
but also bittersweet.

well, it still sucks

it's kind of like a black hole, yeah
not in my room but it's still pulling me in
and the real problem is kind of that i can't apologize,
no matter how i try
and it just became so strikingly clear that they lie
when they say "what you don't know can't hurt you"
because that is all that's hurting me,
isn't it?
i played the prophet and freaked myself out but
i have never wished so strongly that i was wrong.

ilr (still)

all of the good washcloths are gone
and i'm breaking bread
with a candle burning at both ends
and whether or not i wear mascara today
isn't going to change anything, anyways.

three words: nauseous, anxious, depressed
three more: fuck my life

i guess there's only so long
you can stretch out along
a sedately flowing stream
and believe in a dream.
(no hopes and nightmares)
how could you possibly, possibly think
you could make me not care?

i want to tell you so much, still
but you wouldn't hear it
or pretend not to so instead
i'm going to wait for the day when i can eat,
not cry, and it is a mean feat.
and maybe by then i can apologize with
a straight face and you will believe me enough
to believe in me again.

snowday in March? are you kidding me?

missing back stage hand whispers font too small
playing hard to get over it and I'm going to pay the 905
i painted it black before I curled up and tried to see past
fingerprints and mirrored glass and tried to breathe through
arteries that turned into veins and forgot to tell me.
and then my eyes dripped only a few tears and left me weak and shaking.
too often this week i was weak and shaking.
no release.

I'm dragging my bootheels, not wandering or wondering or seeking the right lyrics. they're coming to me, perfectly, like may or come what may. and while it's true that i haven't gotten anywhere near what i asked for, gravitation didn't let me down because flying and love complete each other (heartbreaker without a loving maid, strawberry fields without penny lane) in a way and i am not worried about my future, only you, only yours, because i cannot look into it and see myself in any conceivable way because i am terrified, terrified you will leave me this way, without your sweet love. tell me it's not true if it's not true. but don't lie to save me.