a shield against deception
there are tears sliding down your face
and i'm trying to catch them in my hands
but they're slipping through like thieves through doors.
i'm not sure what you want
i'm just trying to give you what i don't need
once in a while the words start to rhyme
but mostly they just confuse us.
sing out that sad song
there's no one listening but you and me.
i wish i could promise that everything would be okay
but i can't
but i can't
and that alone is killing me.
find me please.
she sits alone in a train car
as the world slides on without her.
she's so close and yet so far,
how many days is this going to take?
he walks down empty streets
completely alone in a world of sorrow
doing nothing but following his feet
how many miles is this going to take?
a train leaving vancouver travels east-bound, fast;
far away.
you made the wrong decision.
too late now.
she rests her head on the steamy window
as he turns and begins to head for home.
(where is home?)
there's no such thing without you.
how many thoughts is this going to take?
etude (one in a million)
4 june 2007
they say to count your blessings
but he'd rather count the coins in his pockets.
the cup they passed to him wasn't holy;
it was spiced with love and catastrophe
aftertastes of loss and remorse.
when you wake in the night, drenched in cold memories
blame it on God
or the liquid you sipped
or the girl who smiles for you
from across a hundred starry galaxies.
when you pass her in your deepest dreams
enter the parallel
let it swallow you whole.
inhibitions or doubts or thoughts?
swept aside.
caught up in the tide and current of beauty?
or of lost love...or a day at the beach.
too late.
29 september 2007
hey -- you with the empty promises
you whose eyes melted so easily
you who couldn't,
or wouldn't,
or knew that you shouldn't pick up the phone.
hey -- you who stitched my heart together with threads of lies
and then cut them (with the "scissors of reality"? or just with the truth?"
thread rips so easily.
hey -- you.
i'm moving on.
the relapse
take the hand she's offering.
walk with her through this field of stars
watch the reflected light dance in her eyes
eyes from which so often small rivers of sadness flow.
she'll take his hand - the hand whose fingers itched to strum a guitar
and she'll run with him through a busy street
they'll dodge cars together - maybe they'll share a kiss on a sidewalk.
maybe.
when the sun shines, they can forget their inhibitions.
but when the mind, soul, and body are at ease
that's when she wakes -
doubt streaming down her face and into her hair
and she will slip from between the twisted sheets
and stumble bare-foot into the star-lit sky.
will you be waiting for her, at the end of the world,
at the end of time,
at the end?
memories - those that float by her in the abyss
jostling for the foremost position in her consciousness
it's time to give in to the swirling night. and as she does -
the sun bursts forth over the horizon.
and he blinks, but her face is scorched into his retinas.
mesmerized by the simplistic beauty (of the dawn, or of the dawn in her eyes?)
today is just another relapse.
insomnia
november 17 2007
tonight
i can't sleep
because it feels like a lifetime since i last
heard your laugh
i try to retreat into my mind.
because it's the only place i can see you.
i want to sleep
and i want to dream
cause in my dreams is where you stay
and we will be together again.