Around the bend…

I’m a new woman
I’m a whole new girl
I just woke up, in the middle of this evening
and saw a whole new me… looking right into my own eyes

I’m standing here
on my own two feet
I balanced on that wire
I made it all the way across
I gathered up my own bones
and took them to my own promised land
I took me by the hand
and honored my pain
and honored my power
to heal myself

I’m standing here
whole
and broken
and whole again
all by myself
and the very next step I take
will be to just exactly where I want to go
and maybe you’re right
maybe I can’t see down that road
nobody can
nobody can
nobody can
see what’s around that bend

so what are you so scared of?

Heart on a Platter

she stares at the blank page
hoping that she won’t fall in
not again
not again

last time she came this way
it was better
there were words on the page but

now there are no words
no words at all
there’s nothing here to show where she’ll end up
so she
can’t fall in
can’t go down
can’t step out
into that
blank world

where have all the words gone?

it changed
it changed
it changed
he pulled the world out from
under me and it changed

there’s a plate on my heart
empty
staring out like a headlight
like one beam of light
out into the darkness
this white plate
there is nothing on it

there is nothing on it
but reflection

the moon stole my heart away
but I got it back
when the words fell off the page
and the world fell away
I took it back off that platter
and now
I see the words again
all the new words

and there is nowhere to fall
I only thought there was

All the words…

I’m thinking of all the words. The ones I want to say. And then I remember… maybe I already said them. To that person I thought was you. In that moment I thought was this moment. And then I don’t want to say them. I don’t want to say them again.

My fool eyes, my damned tongue, my Judas hands that wrote those words… to those inconsequential impersonators, wolves in soft clothing. Those thieves of golden moments, turned criminal by those fucking traitorous words. Those words, like black glue they permanently adhered to the pages they were scratched out on, and the ears, and the hearts that mistook them from me, those hearts and ears, those thieving eyes that held me. Laying in wait, they ambushed me with trust and robbed me of that rarest of moments, that first moment, that first time, that first word, shared. And heard. And gone now.

I’m throwing all of my words away. They are garbage and trash and I’m burning down the house they have lived in. I want to walk through the ashes of my history of words. I would be silent for years if I thought I could wipe the slate clean. I have kept away from the wolves, the ones that feign connection and promise and paint futures that I’m able to consider long enough to wrench my words from me. Your words, the words I meant for you. But though I have kept away these years, the words have still been spent. And they are not renewed. They are banished the moment they fell from my lips. Banished to a lost place that I do not know. Carried away with the men that took them to heart.

I find myself hoping that my words have in part or at least fallen on deaf ears but might have landed squarely on your heart. And every time another woman pretended that she could love you like I already do, and every time she promised that she would, her words fell like worthless currency on the table and you had no use for it. And there it remains, on the wood you never bothered to knock on.

My tongue, no virgin. No pure and sweet and new words are left. Those have all passed this way before, tied to balloons, lofty with hope, or blooming like fucking daisies. All the words I’ve said before are ringing in my ears. The thoughts and dreams and all the things I said I wanted to do.

And now all I want to do is find new words for you.

This Distance

when I feel that distance
this distance between us
I just look up and I see our fingers intertwined over my shoulder
and you whirl me around
closing the distance between us
with a dance

this dance
this dance that pulls me in close to you
just when I feel more than an arm’s length away
you pull me in and show me
what the distance is for

it’s for feeling that pull
it’s for feeling your arms encircle me
it’s for feeling you all around me
strong and there
and here for me

back to front
your hands on my hips
we sway
feel your heart thumping on my shoulder blade
you are here
so close to me
we sway
we sway
to the back and forth
the pull
and the push

chest to chest
your hand on my shoulder
my hand on your heart
we rock
fingers trickle down my back
and it’s those
details
those tender moments
that I come back for
when I am more than an arm’s length
away

and I know
if I couldn’t feel the distance
I wouldn’t know
what this closeness is for

still

that girl
walking
so carefully
each step
heel to toe to
heel to toe
right down the middle
keep it in the middle
that girl
on the wire

she’s not gonna make it
that wobble
that jangle
that back and that forth
that unimaginable
lack
of balance

why is she doing this
why is she all the way
up there
where does it go
what is she trying to
get to
what if she
falls
back down to earth

what made her think
who does she think
why in the world
what has gotten into
that girl on the wire

still

precociously
keeping it in the middle
precariously
stepping that heel to
toe to heel to toe to
right
straight
down
the fricken
middle

on that wire

Ghostgirl

I saw that ghost girl
standing rigid like a spike
stickin up out of the street
she was lookin at me
she was lookin at me
that ghost girl is
black as night and
there’s a ghost in her eyes
a big white ghost
coming for me
but I stopped looking
and drove on by
that ghost bulged right out
to get at me
but I stopped looking
don’t want no part
of that death before death
after death after death

ghostgirl
look down
put those eyes to safety
put those eyes to quiet
put those white eyes away from me
don’t keep following me
with those ghost filled eyes
those empty eyes
those big white eyes

who took your soul away
and filled your eyes up
with death
with that hungry
slithering
death before death?

you shoulda looked away
cause they got those eyes
they sucked your soul right out
and filled those eyes up with ghost
girl