Because i am needy

i will need a few things from you...

Call me by my name.

Listen to my stories sometimes.. even though they annoy you sometimes.

Tell me your truth

not the truth i want to hear

but the truth you are living.

Let me explain something if i know more about it than you.

Kiss me a lot.

If you need more kisses please tell me.. with your lips..

Ask me to do things for you.  i need to be reminded.

Understand that i'm terrified.  of almost everything.  until i am brave.

and then i am very very brave.

Play me ragtime on the piano.

Love me until you don't.

don't be angry when i say things like, "love me until you don't."

Wear the red pants.

Tell me your dreams even when i'm tired.  

Come over tonight and hold my hand on the couch.

lost.

1989

los angeles, 

train yards.

who am i anymore

cherry juice dripping river down my fingers.

drying dark blue.  lips. 

black coffee grounds under my nails

too tired to pick up my guitar

i care.

i still care.

my ambition like a ghost

peripheral harmony

disarming me

get the fuck away from me.

please. 

i dream

and i'm angry

happiness seemed to come out of nowhere

but i think it was in me all along.

i can be okay

even without answers

with never knowing

nor understanding

i can take this brand new heart

and let it be loved again.

even though there 

is another one.

my last heart

a dying song.

i am learning about myself

every day

still

i wake up doped on dreams

mascara smudged into the lines around my eyes

black hooded sweatshirt pulled up over my mothers haircut

squinting for any sight at all

chanting like a drunkard

coffee coffee coffee

moving towards the light

and the life

eager to learn how to live right 

today

eager to do the next right thing 

today

today today today

is this the groundlessness they speak of?

sheer drops on either side

fear stretching slim in front of me and falling for three miles

yet i stand up straight here

so very much alive.

when i think of mad love

i will always think of you

a stitch in my lop side

a tug at my deep chest

baby i really tried.

mine is a plain to see heart

mine is a scaredy cat

mine is a surprise party

all the time.

The Raising

there are no babies coming

my belly has no baby room

but a dirt house is being built

a new home on flattened land

old property

raked earth

pushing

feeding

raising

mud caked wall i'm so tired

my eyes are closing 

i watch all my friends become mothers

just set up shop in my heart and i'll be happy

i didn't even mean that.  at the time i did, yes, but now i feel different. 

if only i could write something that i meant for longer than it took to write it.  

i saw you in the dense light of my dreams

last night.

you were running away from me.

i was crying.

sometimes it is not what we are ready for

but what we are capable of.

my truth was always true.

last night 

i saw you in the dense light of my dreams.

you were running away.

i was crying.

prairie dog

my lips are beginning to believe again.

the pieces of the woman that i was

find their way back to each other

as we kiss. 

as you memorize my face

with your curious fingertips

shadow earthquakes 

are my harrowing tic's.

you're touch is medicine 

and i am healing 

under it.

what is real anymore?

silence

black eyeliner i can't throw out

a jewel hued dress.. balled up in a plastic tub 

under t-shirts i took for souvenirs 

from concerts i played.  in some other lifetime.

was that real?

my 45's.

The Beatles, The BeeGees, 

Bette Midler,

Chicken Fat.

my mother exercised to that one in her thirties.

singing along 

singing about her 'chicken fat'

i sucked my thumb from my fathers nubby chair.

quiet and pleased.  as my mother lay on her back 

with her legs in the air.. doing the bicycle.

was that really me?

what is real anymore?

when you love something so much that you vow

to never betray it. 

a horse i groomed relentlessly.. sharing apples with him,

bite for bite.  horse slobber mixed into my chapstick.

the happiest i have ever been.

that was real. 

and what were we my dear? 

with no memories to recall

with no moments to rely on for evidence 

like smelling salts is the absolute lack

of resonance.

but a feeling i trusted and followed

only to find nothing.

nothing was real.

Two birds

a bluebird

a blackbird

one on each shoulder

twins.

both birds sing 

one sweet, one dark

birds nesting in my heart

they won't fly.

the daybreak

the heartache

and just below them both

the floodgates.

both birds sing

one sweet, one dark

birds nesting in my heart

they won't fly....

i'm deaf

can you hear me >

i'm hard to listen to

when i'm hollering. 

when i'm protesting.

baby

light the virgin de gaudalupe

drive slow.

pass the mural of Cesar Chavez

stop at the seven bridges...

there is a lake on fire

with your image outlined in flames

one disastrous smile 

is still rippling 

around me

such fucking beauty.

stupid birthday party

The 5th

in a few days this will pass

i keep telling myself that.

another holiday will fade

paper firecrackers 

and birthday cake

and the same stupid wish

that i always make

as i lead the pack 

in my personal pity parade.

it will pass.

i know that.

my neighbors in the apartment across from me are drinking beer and blasting southern rock while shooting bb guns off their front porch.  i live in texas.  

Missing

i have the strongest emotion

but no words for it 

just the feeling of you.

a loneliness.

ocean eye.

shoe

  gazer