lead my skeptic sight.

(wrote this earlier in the winter. still working out music to it. lyrics subject to change, because i suck at lyrics.)

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the sky is the very same shade as the ground
the snow in the air muffles all of the sound
i do not feel lonely, though no one's around
and i'm waiting

to tell you this
a last first kiss
it's you i miss
that's all

but truthfully, what i just said is a lie
the future is harder to see than the sky
i can't seem to close or to open my eyes
and i'm waiting

to tell you this
a last first kiss
it's you i miss
that's all

but how can you miss someone you've never met
did i already see you or did i forget
i walk in a whiteout and i'll never let myself go

can't see a thing but the mountains are near
drawing my gaze through the hope and the fear
the beat of your heart is all i can hear

and i'm waiting.

i bought an extra pillow the other day
because i can't sleep unless I'm clutching

something

i tuck the blankets under my chin and cross my arms
as if i'm about to plunge down a water slide
the kind that i hated as a child
because i forgot to cover my mouth
and felt as if i were being flushed down a toilet
which is sometimes what sleep is like
and sometimes what waking is like too

there is more to the pillow
it yields to an embrace
but only so far
before there's nothing left to squeeze
and your arms are sore in the morning

but the alternative is







maybe i should head to texas

words can't explain what happened.
but words are all I got.

some folk might see a waste of time in 'em.
they don't look past the surface of things,
too busy with the What to find the What For.

power.
there's great power in words.
don't need no dragon blood to know that.
the shapes a mouth makes can lay a body low
or set a flame to a kindled fire, even on the coldest of nights.
they can call down salvation and glory
or lash a heart like a cat o' nine.

yeah. words got power.
but they got no say in the matter.
can't help what they are, words, or what they do.
ain't but futile devices, noises and nothings.

unless they got a voice.

and sometimes

This is how I broke your heart.

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I wrote about you once before, almost exactly two years ago. You remind me of autumn, of red leaves and frost and lingering, lengthening evenings. (Your smile says more of summer, of brightness and warmth and daylight. But I never knew you then. I never will.)

So I wrote about forgetting. And I did my part. I just didn't account for yours.

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It was your eyes, mostly. You never looked at me, because you knew what it would do. But I held you close that night, your golden curls woven through my fingers and your lashes on my cheek. And I kissed you, and I looked.

And you didn't look away.

Here's the part you don't know about: My heart broke first.

I couldn't bear it. Because I saw beauty there, and kindness, and the shaping of a helpless joy. Like a dying man in reverse, I saw the rest of my life flash before our eyes.

And I knew it didn't belong to me.

-----------------------------------------

So my heart broke. It grabbed my tongue and wrested words from it, words that even now I cannot comprehend. I will not. They are too painful to consider.

They did the trick.

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You have a new heart now. You need one, of course, to shine as brightly as you do. And as your helpless joy is shaped by another, you must be brighter than ever.

I broke your heart to save mine.

I just didn't expect you to break it again.

if you want to know what it's like
then don't go to bed
learn how to cook
watch the red and the blue
and share your joy with the dawn alone

sleep in the sunlight
and travel at twilight

speak to all you read and never see
give your words away
and take them from those who know you least

see your love before you
and name its beauty
and never hold it again

close your eyes
and listen to the light
listen to the warmth and the cold
and the pain and the impossible
and clench, and cry, and burn, and shine
because you don't know how to stop.

it's like that.

I went to the theatre alone.

I kept the ticket in my pocket. I didn't know what else to do with it. I had bought it on faith, and that didn't seem to be enough, but I clung to it anyway, if only to prove to myself that I tried.

I went to the theatre alone, but I met myself there.

I had stood above the entrance, looking down at the bright-lit tree and the bright-faced people and the wintering city outside. I wore black and wine and I sang. I was good.

I entered the theatre alone, but I met others there.

I took my seat on the wrong side, examined my ticket, and sheepishly moved down the row. I stood to allow the young couple passage. His hair spilled over the tops of his ears, and her shoulders glowed with beauty. The ticket's empty seat sat between us, a barrier separating life from life.

I sat in the theatre alone, but I met the drummer there.

He hammered out beats with stick and brush and hand and wrist. I could see him better now than then; the days of a decade lay in the grey of his hair and the size of my waist and the eyes of us both. But we traveled, he and I. We were younger and we were older and the music was the same, ageless.

I closed my eyes in the theatre alone, but I met her there.

I was a fool. I was out of my depth, and she well knew it. I just wanted her close, and I didn't know how to tell her. I was bumbling, honest, desperate, fierce, shy, strong, loving. And she leaned her head on my shoulder and the scent of her entered me, filled me, warmed me.

I opened my eyes in the theatre alone, but I met the song there.

I have forgotten the music. It used to fill me like her scent, but they both belong to others now, and I can only look on, absent, as they live on. But I saw the name of the song, and for a moment, I remembered. And I held the brass, deep and vibrant, in my hands again. And I expelled breath, and polka dots appeared, and I moved my fingers, and moonbeams shone. And I sighed, and was glad.

I left the theatre alone, but the song goes with me. I hope it never leaves.