Conjure You

Lonely, I conjure you
But conjure you is all that I can do
Spells with which I summon you
Are whispers that this empty night rebukes

Lonely, I conjure you
A figure woven of the finest air
Ghosts and stolen residue
Afoot upon the vagrant shards of moon

Lonely, I call for you
In saline brews of misbegotten eyes
Wrung from hollow avenues
Of brokenhearted alabaster truth

Lonely, I conjure you
But conjure you is all that I can do
Phantasms and dreams of you
Are dancing slowly in this burning room

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Of Those Who Were

Walls–they tell of those who were
The visage, faded, once was clear
Oh where have you then disappeared?

Into the night? Across the sea?
Or do those jaded memories
Still haunt your halls, as they do me?

Foregone–the night so cleverly
With darkness swallows every tear
A soundless cry on soundless ears

But walls–they loath forgetfulness
And not as I do they so turn
Their stories are not fast unlearned

In somber unrelenting tones
A chorus of distress is sung
For spirits absent far too long

T’would be such bliss to quell their taunt
But as I seek I find you not
And feel at last I am forgot

Mimic

You lie
You lie
You evil thing
You look so much like one I love
But you are only pixels made to mimic what I crave

You lie
You lie
You wicked light
A mockery of smiles and life
You useless substitution for the things I fight to save

You lie
To me
So bold, you do
And I, too desperate to see
Am taken in your faking like a starving little wretch

You lie
You give
Me plastic food
But still I grasp it hungrily
This tiny morsel of the thought–the last of what is left

No Reply

I found the tears
They were waiting for me
In the driver’s seat
On an empty street
Parked over the line
Where no one cared
Jill Phillips told me
“If we danced like this everyday”
But I cannot breathe
And just barely move
Enough to push it out
All of it out
This God-awful pain
But I don’t complain
I can be civil and sweet
Faceless and obsolete
I just wish that life
Could go away
Stop nursing me back to health
Just leave me here
To slip into the dark
In the car
With a guitar and a bleeding heart
Beneath blinking red lights
Can I come home tonight?
“I want to go home tonight”
I. Want. To. Go. Home.
But there is no reply

Close

The sun–so bright
The air–so cold
The world–so wide
I feel so old

I want to close
I want to close
I want to close
My eyes for now

The time–so strong
The dreams–so real
The day–so long
I start to feel

I want to close
I want to close
I want to close
My eyes a while

The weight–so much
The pain–so deep
I miss your touch
I need to sleep

I want to close
I want to close
I want to close
My eyes today

My heart–so weak
My head–so lost
My mind conceives
The simple thought:

I want to close
I want to close
I want to close
My eyes today

Healer

Down is not where you belong
A creature of such grace
Should never need a cage

Though your body is not strong
And sometimes misbehaves
The molecules betray you

I would take the very breath out of my lungs
To give you one more moment
If I could be your healer

I would break the hands of death to keep you warm
And give you one more moment
If I could be your healer

I would siphon off the blood
And steal the beats from my own heart
If I could save the ones I love
Is it too late to wake them up?

I would trade my fading pulse
And break my hourglass apart
If I could give the grains to you
If there was something I could do

I would forfeit all the smiles that I am losing anyway
To put the stars back in your sky and for a moment make you safe
Do we have to be so helpless? Does this distance have to be?
I wish I could be your healer

How I miss you here with me

Arts & Crafts

My arts and crafts
Are hearts and masks
Cut out of thoughts
And glued together

Paper faces
Lines I traced
From other smiles
And other places

Take a razor
And a paper
Make a face that
Suits me better

Crude constructions
Simulations
Of expressions
I can’t fashion

Take some scissors
Strong adhesive
Bend the edges
Shape the pieces

Lips for smiling
Eyes for lying
Skin like armor
Just to hide me

My arts and crafts
Are hearts and masks
All colored neat
Inside the lines

If there’s mistakes
We can erase
And start again
With better pens

My arts and crafts
Are jokes and laughs
To cover scratches
Fresh and bleeding

Paper faces
I created
From the things
Left strewn about

I’d Like To Respectfully Decline

I know you want to see my eyes
But the shades are so nice
And my tears are not dry
So if it’s quite alright
I think I’d like to respectfully decline

Oh So Still

The teeth are out tonight
Just be motionless and quiet
The eyes are on the prowl
Making fearful sorts of sounds

But I learned early life is scary
Everything out to get me
Don’t disturb the silence
And stay oh so still

I learned early no one knows me
Everyone is cold and lonely
Don’t disturb the balance
Just stay oh so still

The mob is out tonight
Just be motionless and quiet
With torches held as swords
It’s a vicious little world

I learned early life is scary
There are secrets you should bury
Don’t leave any footprints
And be oh so still

I learned early life is scary
This disguise is necessary
Never let them see you
And be oh so still

But maybe just maybe
If I don’t move a muscle
The eyes will not see me
The teeth will not bite

And maybe just maybe
If nothing can find me
My silence will save me
And I will survive

String In My Chest

There’s a string in my chest
Attached to the mess
We left unswept
The day you left

And I keep it all in
Away from the friends
And prying eyes
That ask me why

There’s a string in my chest
That will sometimes catch
On certain songs
Or random thoughts

And unravel the seams
That spill all the things
I try to keep
So nice and neat

And the string in my chest
Is hanging from my heart

It’s a dangerous game
I’m sure it’s not too smart

For a valuable thing
To be so quickly torn

But it wasn’t my plan
It’s just how I was born

There’s a string in my chest
That sometimes comes undone

When the threads are snagged
On fragments of my love

There’s a string in my chest
That makes me think of you

It’s a beautiful mess
We got ourselves into

Speaking To An Empty Room

It’s like a surgical procedure as I separate the sound
From the things I feel inside of me and how it all turned out
As I tear a little piece of me from underneath my skin
It becomes a rough translation of the state that I am in

Unintentionally
I opened my mouth
And the sound that came out was “I miss you”
But there was nothing to say
The room was empty
And it echoed it back to me “I miss you”

What happened
I’m talking to myself again
I must be crazy

It’s not that I
Don’t know how to live
It’s just that lately

Nothing feels
Like reality
It’s all a little strange

I guess that I
Have a lot to live for
But I just need to say

I miss you
Sometimes I just smile pretending you are there
I miss you
Sometimes I just cry for no reason at all
I miss you
I would not trade any moment I have had
I miss you
In the end I know it’s really not so bad

No one knows the way I feel
Except for you and this empty room
No one hears these little words
But it’s the least that I could do

Unintentionally
I opened my mouth
And the sound that came out was “I miss you”
But there was nothing to say
The room was empty
And it echoed it back to me “I miss you”

And I could almost hear your voice…

Second Plan

Was I brave or was I reckless
I can’t decide as I look at this
Mess I’m in with only me to blame

Was it wrong to think that love is
Bigger than the walls around us
Nothing here will ever be the same

Clouds roll in and I roll over
In my bed but it’s not over
Questions linger hanging from
These ceilings where the pain began

I don’t know how to recover
Grasping just to face another
Day where I can understand
To love without a second plan

Was I brave or was I reckless
I can’t decide as I look at this
Mess I’m in with only me to blame

Still I must believe that love is
Bigger than these walls around us
When it comes it changes everything

Translucent

Do you see me
Am I here
I must be crazy
But I don’t feel like I exist

Do you see me
Anywhere
I must be fading
Why is my face so colorless

In the mirror
Peering back
I must be dreaming
There’s a stranger in my skin

It looks human
Still intact
But I feel hollow
Like a fragment of the wind

I can see right through my tenuous disguise
This lack of substance and this faded enterprise
Maybe now in form I start to realize
I am translucent and I hope they see the light
Through me

Grey

I take comfort under grey skies
In the shadow of the storm
I feel better when the rain cries
And I don’t feel so alone
I would rather see the cloud line
Than to feel the heat of day
I am thankful for the sunshine
But I’d rather have the grey

Happy Face

I think I need time or space
Maybe just a bit of both
To bring back a smiling face
Tonight it’s out on loan
Not that I’m all that sad
I think it’s the aftermath
Of crying too hard too much
And they don’t make pills for that

The pillows I sleep with know
Oh when it rains it pours
I turned all my insides out
There’s nothing to say anymore
But I’ll get along just fine
And soon I will find a place
To translate these tears of mine
And put on a happy face

Trouble has come and gone
Maybe it hangs around
I don’t feel like checking tonight
It’s late and I need to lay down
The world is an awkward place
For being a sensitive type
There’s too many ways to fall
And not enough help to rise

But I’ve got a drink beside
The bed stand where I will sleep
The headache will fade by then
Along with the rest of me
I do what I can to believe
The choices we make will count
For something beyond these dreams
It’s all worth the cost for now

It could be worse I suppose
And that’s what I tell myself
We have to keep feeding our hope
We have to keep up our health
When all of these tragic times
Have turned into history
I’ll look back and say it’s alright
It’s still worth it all to me

Looking Up

Make faces at the lemons
Life provides for flavoring
Don’t cry for broken wishes
Life is full of better things
You and I were made for dancing
Let the rhythm lead you on
I know it isn’t easy
But it’s worth another song

Don’t stop looking up
Pinky promise you will smile tonight
Lady you’ve cried enough
Everything will be alright
We have so much more to do
So much to be thankful for
So I’m going to smile for you
Knowing that I love you more

Stop swinging punches darling
No one is attacking you
Everyone loves you so much
Don’t say you don’t know it’s true
Patience is more than virtue
Peace is just a choice you make
Choose the best that you can do
Do the best for heaven’s sake