mysterious

i wanted to return the favor and
so i made an inquiry in your name but
he sort of shot me down with more words than
i've ever heard him use but then
a few hours later i went back to grab my things
saw him sitting on the couch and watched him sing
and baby, i can't tell you any more now
than i thought i could before but i tried,
yeah i tried and i'm sorry that he hurts you.
yeah i'm sorry that he hurts you,
and not just when it hurts me too.

everybody's got a little schizophrenic going,
everyone's a sinner, talking to themselves,
everybody's bound for heaven, less of course they land in hell
and i see your bipolar and understand
and i love you anyway
and he just sees a selfish struggle.

so let's call him a Muggle,
and wash our hands clean of it.

smoke and mirrors

to keep myself from feeling oh so small,
i go and let the curtain fall
over the sad little girl too pathetic to get over it,
too bitter to let you forget it,
too determined to do what they expect
to let the facade crumble down
(though i try to hide it, it's clear,
and you can fill in the next line.)
if you feel the need to interfere,
or be irritated with me, dear,
have some fucking fun.

but i swim in frigid ocean waves if the sky is blue enough and i don't worry about the dangers lurking beneath the surface of your love, or lack thereof.

if you gave me less credit, you'd be less disappointed.

a very long poem about my very long weekend

i drifted that day reveling in sunshine
and turquoise satin, which is almost exactly
what i've wanted for a year now and

what i want more than anything, i can't have.

lady, don't treat me like a child, too soon we'll
exchange on a first-name basis and maybe i'll write a song
for you because i think it might sound nice but please
at least pretend to be as crazed as i am

dear father, all i can really ask is why?

and you are three twins, i know it's what you want and
i get it and i'm glad but i want you and you don't have a clue

and love is real, not fade away! (not fade away)
we're all still here, the same today!
looking for a miracle, dancing in the streets,
sharing bags of cocaine sharing all you've got to eat
children playing in the dirt will never know another way
and thirty years from now my daughter will wonder how they went astray
and it was too small, that part of me that wanted to stay,
i drank it, shimmied in the contact high the haze of illegal blues
got me down deep baby, deep.

forget the mile high club. some day i want to have sex at a concert.

and my shirtsleeves roll up and random gives me hope but
it wasn't too long ago i was crying and so much i can never change

because it will never, ever be the same
and you'll never, ever say my name.

but i want you. i want you so bad.

week six (a haiku)

i dig my fingers in dirt
she digs into you
my gaze betrays my smile

fear

is wondering if the Mexican you so
misguidedly made out with will
find a way to follow you home

is wondering if you'd really mind it too much
if he did

is wondering if he's friends with
the guy in the diner smiling at you

is wondering if you'd kiss him, too.

climax/detroit

i was gone
for good and good and gone
and wrong, so very wrong
and bone-tired.
a thin film of firesmoke
interferes with what you see here
and i can't count the tears
anymore, but they surprised me.
i don't know who or what they're for
because i should have so much
but i drove too fast
i got yelled at
i lost it
i think i lost it

i think i lost it all.

despondent response

mist covers everything and
anything and i'm always shouting
yes at the top of my lungs but i'd like to
be just myself for a few moments
especially now

yesterday i didn't wait in the gray
of the parking lot
under a mardi gras decked tree
ruined by some sort of facade
easily

would you really change the
rain? you think you're so
observant, so poetic, so edgy
not even close, baby, and i am just as
gorgeous as you see

unwelcome

if my shoes slip,
i'll trip.
and i pretend to strip
for strange lips
against mine and this time,
it's fine.
no threats from a previous since lost claim.
you fade
day after day and i
don't want to wait and see
but something
is telling me that you might
need
but i can't tell you if i care
and so i twist my hair
practice backbends, breathe in the salty air
look up instead of towards the ground
and i'd like to lift you, too.

up here, it's sort of quiet.

you'd like it.