Platforms

Life knocked me off my platforms so I pulled out my first pair of boots bought on the street at astor place before new york was run by suits and I suited up for the long walk back to myself closer to the ground now with sorrow and stealth.

Swim

You keep telling me I'm beautiful but I feel a little less so each time your love is so colorful it flashes like a neon sign but I finally drove out where the sky is dark enough to see stars and I found I missed no one just listening to the swishing of distant cars. I hope I never see the ocean again pushing and pulling at me as I go deeper and deeper in til I'm so far from my shore so far from what I came here for I let you surround me I let you drown me out with your din and then I learned how to swim. I was floating above myself watching her do just what you wanted poor little friendly ghost wondering why her whole house feels haunted I told myself I was strong enough that I had plenty of blood to give and each elbow cradled a needle but listless and faint ain't no way to live. So I hope I never see the ocean again pushing and pulling at me as I go deeper and deeper in til I'm so far from my shore so far from what I came here for I let you surround me I let you drown me out with your din and then I learned how to swim. You keep telling me I'm beautiful but I feel a little less so each time your love is so colorful it flashes like a neon sign but I finally drove out where the sky is dark enough to see stars and I found I missed no one just listening to the swishing of distant cars.

Educated Guess

Looks like my crazy family is down one crazy daughter 'cause I'm shipwrecked in a desert that once was underwater just looking for a swift turn of phrase some colors to fly as I float by in the parade. Plus I dream in skin scented sentences of a stronger faster fiercer you and to each noun, verb and predicate I dedicate a vivid hue but you ain't done too well getting past your permanent pastel have you now? Yes, the desert seemed so promising and then it paled somehow. So school is in session get your chin off your desk now pick up your pencil and turn over your test use your education and take an educated guess about me. I've got a slot at eye level like a speakeasy door and I know you know the password cuz I've seen you here before and I've got something sweet for you and I don't care if it is more than you deserve I've got a lot of love and a lot of nerve so watch me while I take this curve. Yes school is in session get your chin off your desk now pick up your pencil and turn over your test use your education and take an educated guess about me. Plus I have this whole new family and I'm in love with each of them and I'm on this list called lucky whenever I'm in reach of them and I'm learning how to say that I'd be happy either way with your love. i'm calling on the stars above School is in session get your chin off your desk now pick up your pencil turn over your test use your education and take an educated guess about me.

Origami

I am an all powerful amazon warrior not just some sniveling girl so no matter what I think I need you know I can't possibly have a need in this world. Come and come for that sweet sweetness i'll be your never ending vending machine I could never need to be alone never need to be my own as much as you need your queen. I know men are delicate origami creatures who need women to unfold them hold them when they cry but I am tired of being your savior and I am tired of telling you why. And since when did this me me me become the be all and end all of me oh listen to you talk to me long time love has got to breathe, babe you got to let it ebb and flow if you want a ball to bounce you gotta let it go just let it go. I know men are delicate origami creatures who need women to unfold them hold them when they cry but I am tired of being your savior and I am tired of telling you why.

Bliss Like This

I said venice you heard vegas now I say either way baby let's go I get so shaky and I just can't shake it I bliss like this I'm one of those. But I don't wanna wear you wear you like a band-aid wave you like a ticket out of my good grief I just wanna know you know you like I know my garden what you smell like when you're bloomin what lives underneath deep down underneath way down underneath. We do a whole lotta laughin at the shyness that surrounds us I do a whole lotta lookin somewhere else I don't need to look no, I can just feel you besides every time I see you it just forces me to look at myself. 'Cause I get so shaky and I just can't shake it I bliss like this I'm one of those and I said venice and you heard vegas but now I say either way let's go c'mon baby let's go.

The True Story of What Was

The light blue flickering rhythm of the neighbor's big console t.v. is basking on the ceiling of another insomniac spree and outside sleep's open window between the drops of rain history is writing a recipe book for every earthly pain. Oh to clean up the clutter of echoes coming in and out of focus words spoken like locusts sing and sing in my head. And thing is they often seem in my memory's long dream to be superfluous to the true story of what was. 'Cause real is real regardless of what you try to say or say away real is real relentless while words distract and dismay words that change their tune though the story remains the same words that fill me quickly and then are slow to drain dialogues that dither down reminiscent of the way it likes to rain every screen a smoke screen oh to dream just for a moment the picture outside the frame. Then in a flash the light blue horizon spanning a sudden black is sucked into the vanishing point and quiet rushes back to search for the downbeat in a tabla symphony to search in the darkness for someone who looks like me (though I'm not really who I said I was or who I thought I'd be) just a collection of recollections conversations consisting of the kind of marks we make when we're trying to get a pen to work again. A lifetime of them! I say to me now here listening I say to the locusts that sing and sing to me sitting now here on the front porch swing of my eyes: I hereby amend whatever I've ever said with this sigh.

Bodily

You broke me bodily the heart ain't the half of it and I'll never learn to laugh at it in my good natured way in fact I'm laughing less in general but I learned a lot at my own funeral and I knew you'd be the death of me so I guess that's the price I pay. I'm trying to make new memories in cities where we fell in love my head just barely above the darkest water I've ever known you had me in that cage you had me jumpin through those hoops for you still, I think I'd stoop for you stoop for your eyes alone. From that bomb shell moon in yet another lovely dress to the deep mahogany sheen of a roach I am trying to take an appreciative approach to life in your wake I focus on the quiet now and occasionally I'll fall asleep somehow and emptiness has its solace in that there's nothing left to take.

You Each Time

There you were day after day six feet twenty feet two feet away right in my pocket singin me a song makin my heart race all day long. And we talked it out and we talked it down but your eyes were not listening and my ears were looking around for another song to sing but it was you each time it was you. The answer to each moment must be yes and the question: can you live with that? becomes the test so you weigh it against that aching in your chest and that secretly relentless emptiness. And you talk it out and you talk it down but your eyes are not listening and my ears are running around looking for another song to sing but it is you each time it is you. So my heart finally broke it was so long bent and it broke in three places when it finally went it wanted only to say what it meant so it suffered every punishment. Now it lives in a shack outside of town and only the wolves are out there listening and in her dreams they chase her down their moonlit eyes are glistening and it is you each time it is you.

Animal

More and more there is this animal looking out through my eyes at all the traffic on the road to nowhere at all the shiny stuff around to buy at all the wires in the air at all the people shopping for the same blank stare at america the drastic that isolated geographic that's become infested with millionaires. When you grow up surrounded by willful ignorance you have to believe mercy has its own country and that it's round and borderless and then you have to grow wings and rise above it all like there where that hawk is circling above that strip mall. More and more there is this animal looking out through my eyes seeing that animals only take from this world what they need to survive but she is prowling through all the religions of men seeing that time and time and time again their gods have made them special and above nature's law and the respect thereof. And I think when you grow up surrounded by willful ignorance you have to believe that mercy has its own country and that it's round and borderless and then you just grow wings and rise above it all like there where that hawk is circling above that strip mall. Ask any eco-system harm here is harm there and there and there and aggression begets aggression it's a very simple lesson that long preceded any king of heaven and there's this brutal imperial power that my passport says I represent but it will never represent where my heart lives only vaguely where it went. 'Cause I know when you grow up surrounded by willful ignorance you learn that mercy has its own country and that it's round and borderless and then you just grow wings and rise above it all like there where that hawk is circling above that strip mall.

Grand Canyon

I love my country by which I mean I am indebted joyfully to all the people throughout its history who have fought the government to make right where so many cunning sons and daughters our foremothers and forefathers came singing through slaughter came through hell and high water so that we could stand here and behold breathlessly the sight how a raging river of tears cut a grand canyon of light. Yes, I've been so many places flown through vast empty spaces with stewardesses whose hands look much older than their faces I've tossed so many napkins into that big hole in the sky been at the bottom of the atlantic seething in a two-ply looking up through all that water and the fishes swimming by and I don't always feel lucky but I'm smart enough to try cuz humility has buoyancy and above us only sky so I lean in breathe deeper that brutal burning smell that surrounds the smoldering wreckage that I've come to love so well yes, color me stunned and dazzled by all the red white and blue flashing lights in the american intersection where black crashed head on with white comes a melody comes a rhythm a particular resonance that is us and only us comes a screaming ambulance a hand that you can trust laid steady on your chest working for the better good (which is good at its best) and too, bearing witness like a woman bears a child: with all her might. Born of the greatest pain into a grand canyon of light. I mean, no song has gone unsung here and this joint is strung crazy tight and people bin raising up their voices since it just ain't bin right with all the righteous rage and all the bitter spite that will accompany us out of this long night that will grab us by the hand when we are ready to take flight seatback and traytable in the upright and locked position shocked to tears by each new vision of all that my ancestors have done. Like, say, the women who gave their lives so that I could have one. People, we are standing at ground zero of the feminist revolution yeah, it was an inside job stoic and sly one we're supposed to forget and downplay and deny but I think the time is nothing if not nigh to let the truth out coolest f-word ever deserves a fucking shout! I mean why can't all decent men and women call themselves feminists? Out of respect for those who fought for this I mean, look around we have this. Yes I love my country by which I mean I am indebted joyfully to all the people throughout its history who have fought the government to make right where so many cunning sons and daughters our foremothers and forefathers came singing through slaughter came through hell and high water so that we could stand here and behold breathlessly the sight how a raging river of tears is cutting a grand canyon of light.

Company

What's the point of all this pointless proximity if you won't talk take me for a walk through a little story. All these years have made me sick to tears of such mysteries why should I keep you if you won't keep me company? Until I get to know you I ain't gonna show you nothing wordlessly what do you think this is? You think that that grin gonna get you in where you wanna be? Do I have to stand under your little cloud just to get near you baby can't you help this little girl not to fear you why don't you just talk take me for a walk through a little story. And tell me why should I keep you if you won't keep me company?

Rain Check

As dolls go I am broken and you could just let that get us off the hook but from under the umbrella of the unspoken I see you giving me that look. Baby, you're right as rain about the benefits but you might be wrong about the costs and it feeds my heart that you came looking for me but I'm thinkin I need to stay lost. So I won't say I saw you fibbing or jump-jigging across the floor I won't say you walked me to my car and draped your arm on my open door. I know my mind is made of matter but I need to know exactly what is the matter at it's core? because my heart is just a muscle and simply put, it's sore. So never mind about the benefits and never mind about the costs that don't change the basic premises in which I am surely lost. So I won't say I saw you fibbing or jump-jigging across the floor I won't say you walked me to my car and draped your arm on my open door.

Akimbo

What dreams cause me to abandon my pillow each night? push away each of them, in fact since there always seem to be more than one then wake to aching stiff neck twisted tits and face smashed against the mattress legs and arms akimbo like the high pitched body of a jumper waiting for her chalk outline finally at rest.

Bubble

I hated to pop the bubble of me and you but it only held enough oxygen for a trip or two to the moon and back again tell me, do you remember when our love had such grace we were floating above this whole place. It's dawn on the corner where the city tests its squeaky breaks outside my bedroom window a doppler muffler and a boomin bass it's dawn and the snow is turning on its deepest blue so I go outside just to stand there and look at my hands against the color I find I always return to. I want you to always remember for me baby, if you can how much you hated the woman who made you a man and remember for me won't you back further before that how you loved her like a boy cried from the joy when you weren't laughing. No, I hated to pop the bubble of me and you but it only held enough oxygen for a trip or two to the moon and back again do you remember when our love had such grace we were floating above this whole place. So I hear these days you too are trying your hand at sleeplessness a few more dizzying doppler lovers and then a booming loneliness how innocent the young student on the day school has begun when I said this was what I wanted did you think I thought it would be fun? No, I hated to pop the bubble of me and you but it only held enough oxygen for a trip or two to the moon and back again oh but I remember when our love had such grace we were floating above this whole place.