Hog-tied in Seeleyville

I’m ashamed to admit it 

Your beating heart might be the only real thing

Keeping me alive right now

I’m ashamed to say I’ve lost all

The meaning of life right at my fingertips

Beautiful joys got me buried in gratitude

What was I supposed to do

Just do what you can in 12 or 13 hours

It’s just life and always time to go anyway

What if it’s all being done 

Without thought or love on purpose 

All the magic I make-believe is gonna disappear

I couldn’t imagine you seeing me swinging 

Hanging works but is too eerily haunting 

So I’ll stay and put it away safe tonight

Why must I block my intimacy with a wall

Was my mouth always taped shut

With me just leaning into dark stolen places

I’m ashamed I trusted myself instead of wisdom

Lest I woke up naked, sick and wet 

Tangled in cord on the stripped mattress top

I’d die if it had happened to you

So I’ll sleep with the moon in the window

Your beating heart keeping me here another day

Spring Digging

If I could get lost in the dirt again

All the edgies would fall off my skin

I was determined when I was weak

Realized I just get one moment

I can’t force returning to soft 

Though I wish I’d melt like butter

Into the sheets and atmosphere

Soft just like the rabbit’s pelt 

I didn’t ask to be locked up like a roach 

Stuck in the hide of a shell 

I trusted your promise; I made it up

By being selfish and dishonest 

I saw a redbud blooming at the end of a drive

My heart puked from joy and dread

I was content. I was content. I wasn’t 

When I awakened grey and dead

Smithville

The canoe has a hole in it

Still we took it out so far

And travelled all the coves

No one is in the houses 

Only buzzards flying above us

Time is owned by the trees

I didn’t know what I was doing

Driven by an undercurrent of should’as 

And burdening financial fear

Come and bail me out

Roll me up and drop me over

Let me go where I am asleep

What’s a pirate’s treasure

Hidden in the ancient rocks

Of a seabed of petrification 

What’s it say for you to do

Give me back my money

Shut the door turning your eyes away

I say I love you. I love you

What’s that mean? What does it?

Getting shoved into the water wheel

PMS Running Post Covid-19

The waves of the tall grass

Really do look like water

When you stare through wet eyes

No matter how hard or how far I run

You won’t be there in the end

To catch me when all the clouds burst

If I could make it real again

I’d drown myself in the waves

Awakening in a whole new place

Back somewhere familiar

With memories that made less sound

Where I could taste you and smell my skin

Terre Haute

Take a look behind me now

see the patterns keep repeating

Round and round like a pinwheel

While there’s nothing wrong; it’s all benign

Seems the harsh hate of words I don’t mind

Realize I’m the one who ended all along

Where are we we’re not the same

Day through day with so much work and little pay

Is easy to imagine your moments away

Life is just life it’s life it’s like this

I’m the one who ended; cashed out

Drowned myself before my wedding vows

Water rolls over my fingertips but I can’t feel

Something between hot and cold

Like thick milk left on the counter

Hear wind chimes now all the time

I can’t not hear the wind chimes all the time

Like a train whistle left stuck in my mind