Names and Dates and Times

i know so many white people. i mean, where do i start? the trouble with white people is you can't tell them apart. i'm so bad with names and dates and times, but i'm big on faces that is, except for mine. i believe you when you tell me we've met before. this time you've got my interest. this time you've got the floor. why don't you go and tell me something i don't already know? give me something to remember you by when you go. i eat too much. i laugh too long. maybe i'll like too much of you when i'm gone. let's go over to the window and sit in the neon light. let's go out walking you know, it's garbage night. let's go down to the east river and throw something in. something we can't live without and then let's start again. the more you talk, the more i get the sense of something that hasn't happened yet. the more you talk, the more i want to know the way i'll remember you when i go. i eat too much. i laugh too long. maybe i'll like too much of you when i'm gone. i am so many white people. i mean, where do i start? they've got lots of personalities. i just can't tell them apart, and i never remember anything except for those things which i never forget. you know there's no in between. i'm big on your face. yeah, it's big in my mind. you're like the rest of the human race. you're one of a kind.

Anyday

i will lean into you and you can be the wind. i will open up my mouth and you can come rushing in. you can rush in so hard and make it so i can't breathe. i breathe too much anyway. i can do that anyday. i just wish i knew who you were. i wish you'd make yourself known. probably you don't know i'm her, the woman you want to call home. i'll keep my ear to the wall. i'll keep my eye on the door 'cause i've heard all my own jokes and they're just not funny anymore. i laugh too much anyway. i can do that anyday. have you ever been bent or pulled? have you ever been played like strings? if i could see you, i could strum you, i could break you, make you sing. but i guess you can't really see the wind. it just comes in and fills the space. and everytime something moves, you think that you have seen its face. and i've always got my guitar to play, but i can do that anyday.

Fourth Of July

you gotta have the right tools for every job, so i invite myself in through a hole in the fence. i am tripping through the junkyard, scanning over the piles. the thin cats raise their skin in defense. i know he's watching me. i can see him through the cracks. his eyes are small and shy on my back. he says his name is jason. he lives in the last trailer on the right and he'll be seven on the 4th of july. only the people who live here know the name of this place. my path through iowa would be hard to trace. all the adults in this town try not to frown when i walk by, but jason smiled at me. he met my eye. he don't ask me where i'm from or why i came here alone. we all go looking for paradise, then we go back home. we cut out the small talk, go right to the way things are. he showed me his squirrel skull, i told him i locked myself out of my car. so there goes the only friend i have in iowa. his hand flapping behind him waving good-bye. his name is jason. he lives in the last trailer on the right, and he'll be seven on the 4th of july.

Willing To Fight

the windows of my soul are made of one way glass. don't bother looking into my eyes. if there's something you want to know, just ask. i got a dead bolt stroll. where i'm going is clear. i won't wait for you to wonder. i'll just tell you why i'm here. 'cause i know the biggest crime is just to throw up your hands. say this has nothing to do with me. i just want to live as comfortably as i can. you got to look outside your eyes. you got to think outside your brain. you got to walk outside your life to where the neighborhood changes.tell me who is your bogeyman? that's who i will be. you don't have to like me for who i am, but we'll see what you're made of by what you make of me. i think that it's absurd that you think i am the derelict daughter. i fight fire with words. words are hotter than flames. words are wetter than water. i got friends all over this country. i got friends in other countries too. i got friends i haven't met yet. i got friends i never knew. i got lovers whose eyes i've only seen at a glance. i got strangers for great grandchildren. i got strangers for ancestors. i was a long time coming. i'll be a long time gone. you've got your whole life to do something and that's not very long. so why don't you give me a call when you're willing to fight for what you think is real. for what you think is right.

Egos like Hairdos

i saw on the poster my name was printed just a little bit smaller. i can see you need to stand just a little bit taller. no one ever talks about it, but no one can disguise the cloud of competition that's hanging behind their eyes. there's more bad blood in this bar than there is beer. and it's subtle, but it still sucks, and i want out of here. we got egos like hairdos. they're different every day depending on how we slept the night before. depending on the demons that are at our door. they told me you wanted to play last. every profession has its system of castes. so they reverse the order we go on and then you stand at the bar and you talk through my songs. we've got egos like hairdos. they're different every day depending on how we slept the night before. depending on the demons that are at our door. everybody loves the underdog, but no one wants to be him. the press will fatten you up and then they'll dig their teeth in. it's cool to discover someone. it's hard to support them. everyone is playing life like it's some stupid sport. we got egos like hairdos. they're different every day depending on how we slept the night before. depending on the demons that are at our door. i got my kitchen stocked. i got my door unlocked. there're no demons here. and i don't really care whose name is printed in bigger type. you know i live in a world full of hope, not a world full of hype. i ain't no saint, i help myself to what i need, but i help other people too. y'know i sleep soundly.

Back Around

my lipstick jumped ship to a styrofoam cup with the coffee, gone the conversation strong. all i got left to give baby, is up. but sentiments like shadows grow oh so long. guess i gotta go. don't get up. don't cry. it's really very simple, just kiss my cheek and say goodbye. i never really go anywhere. anyway, i just pass through from time to time. bye bye, baby, baby, bye bye. maybe i'll see you next time i'm in town. maybe when i'm through falling off the face of the earth. i'll come back around. you know i love to come back around. ten hours of driving will make your mind kind of numb but it's better than ten dollars an hour slamming a hammer on my thumb and it's better than five dollars an hour selling people shit i wouldn't buy myself at least at the end of the day i'm always somewhere else. bye bye, baby, baby, bye bye. maybe i'll see you next time i'm in town. maybe when i'm through falling off the face of the earth .i'll come back around. you know i love to come back around.

Blood In The Boardroom

sitting in the boardroom, the i'm-so-bored room, listening to the suits talk about their world. they can make straight lines out of almost anything, except for the line of my upper lip when it curls. dressed in my best greasy skin and squinty eyes, i'm the only part of summer here that made it inside in the air-conditioned building decorated with corporate flair. i wonder can these boys smell me bleeding though my underwear? there's men wearing the blood of the women. they love there's white wearing the blood of the brown, but every woman learns to bleed from the moon, and we bleed to renew life every time it's cut down. i got my vertebrae all stacked up as high as they go i, but i still feel myself sliding from the earth that i know. so i excuse myself and leave the room. say my period came early, but it's not a minute too soon. i go and find the only other woman on the floor is the secretary sitting at the desk by the door. i ask her if she's got a tampon i could use. she says, oh honey, what a hassle for you, sure i do. you know i do. i say it ain't no hassle, no, it ain't no mess. right now ,it's the only power that i possess. these businessmen got the money. they got the instruments of death. but i can make life i can make breath. sitting in the boardroom, the i'm-so-bored room, listening to the suits talk about their world. i didn't really have much to say the whole time. i was there so i just left a big brown bloodstain on their white chair.

Born A Lion

i'm not hurting anyone. i'm just telling my truth, and if there if there is something wrong, then maybe there's something wrong with you. what's the big deal? get over it. relax, just 'cause i do up in your face what other people do behind your back. why we all gotta look gotta act the same? i say if you're born a lion, don't bother trying to act tame. everything i do, i do for the first time. i got a big crush on you. and it's crushing my mind. can i follow you home and listen to you think? leave my lip prints on your cups? leave my hairs in your sink? they think i'm out there out there living on the fringe. well, this is my world and i invited them in. they should try living by my rules for a day. nobody would die. there'd be lots of stuff to say. i'm not hurting anyone. no, i'm not hurting anyone.

My IQ

when i was four years old they tried to test my i.q. they showed me a picture of 3 oranges and a pear. they said, which one is different? it does not belong. they taught me different is wrong. but when i was 13 years old, i woke up one morning thighs covered in blood like a war, like a warning that i live in a breakable takeable body. an ever-increasingly valuable body that a woman had come in the night to replace me, deface me. see, my body is borrowed yeah, i got it on loan for the time in between my mom and some maggots. i don't need anyone to hold me. i can hold my own. i got highways for stretchmarks. see where i've grown. i sing sometimes like my life is at stake, 'cause you're only as loud as the noises you make. i'm learning to laugh as hard as i can. listen 'cause silence is violence in women and poor people. if more people were screaming, then i could relax, but a good brain ain't diddley if you don't have the facts. we live in a breakable takeable world. an ever available possible world, and we can make music like we can make do. genius is in a back beat. backseat to nothing if you're dancing, especially something stupid like i.q. for every lie, i unlearn i learn something new. i sing sometimes for the war that i fight, 'cause every tool is a weapon - if you hold it right.

Used To You

i'm still here because i've got nothing else to do. you're an asshole, but i'm getting used to you. i like the fact that you talk incessantly. i got a thing for assholes who tell good stories. i think that drinking is the only thing that you do right. you're gonna self-destruct. i think that's what i like. you like me, so you try and make me feel like shit. i think it's kind of funny. yeah i kind of enjoy it. if you're gonna do it, overdo it. that's how you know you're alive. go ahead, take yourself a coma nap. take a puddle dive. you said, this is my bedroom window. you said, this is my view. you said, lie down here with me and see the things that i do. like you were trying to tell me something about the way you live. like you would give me something if you had something to give. and for all your talk you don't say much that's real. i think i know more than you about the way that you feel. i understand your anger and your apathy. i think if i was you, you're who i'd be. i'm still here 'cause i got nothing else to do. you're an asshole, but i'm getting used to you. i could love you. yeah, i've entertained the thought. but i could never like you, so i guess i'd better not.

Pick Yer Nose

how come i can pick my ears but not my nose? who made up that rule anyway? how can you say that's the way it is.that's just the way it goes. why don't you decide for yourself what you can do and what you can say. how come i can pick my friends but not my enemies? what is it about me that offends? what is it about me 'cause you know i'm only five foot two and i'm giggly wiggly? tell me again, what did i do? why are you scared of me? i fight with love and i laugh with rage. you've gotta live light enough to see the humor and long enough to see some change. i think shy is boring. i think depressed is too. i think pretty is nice, but i'd rather see something new. all these plastic people got their plastic surgery, but we got a big, big beautiful. we got it for free. who you gonna be if you can't be yourself? you can't get it from t.v. you can't force it on anybody else. you know they come to clear cut. they come to strip mine. they come for some of my big butt, my big brain, or just a little time. they wanna take me out to dinner. think i'm a bitch if i don't go. seems like the people who actually like me won't allow me to say no. your idea of a conversation is the third degree, but i don't really know you, and i don't really want to talk about me. 'cause i'm not going to pretend that i don't pick my nose. that's just the way it is, my friends. that's just the way it goes. this is who i am, what i do, and what i say. if you like it, let it be. if you don't, please do the same. i fight with love. i laugh with rage. you gotta live light enough to see the humor and long enough to see some change.

God's Country

state trooper thinks i drive too fast. pulled me over to tell me so. i say out here on the prairie any speed is too slow. i miss brooklyn. i miss my crew. let's start over. i missed my cue. guess i just forgot who i was talking to. i should have recognized that fierce look in his eyes. i've seen it in the mirror so many times. he's going to put his two cents in 'cause he's got a gun, but i'm gonna put in three 'cause history owes me one. guess i came out here to see some stuff for myself. i mean, why leave the telling up to everybody else? this may be god's country, but it's my country too. move over mr. holiness and let the little people through. thank you for serving and protecting the likes of me. thank you for the ticket now can i leave? you know i have left everywhere i have ever been. i don't really recommend it though. not like anyone asked me. maybe you and i will meet again someday. i've been known to come down this road. call it destiny, and then again maybe not. i don't know.