Bad Body Double

I am lately lonely, I don't get out much.
The pillow in my pillowcase is easier to touch.

My heart won’t move,
It’s incomplete,
You can't tell but it’s quite the disease.

The dust has only just begun to fall,
Your oily marks appear on walls,
Where my memories were before.

I cut my long baby hair,
Looked for me everywhere,
Looked through the white fence cracks,
Climbed trees and walked down rail road tracks.

Went down to Mexico,
To a crazy little place I know,
Talked to a man with a black mustache,
I asked him a question, he told me "no”.
I thought I had wasted all my cash.
He cut my heart, just a small gash.
He bled my heart as dry as a baja highway lane.
I flew home that Sunday on a twin proppelor plane,
To come back to much the same.
Looking for an angle I hadn’t tried before,
Wishing I'd stocked up on tequilla I could pour.

It may seem like a stretch,
That God himself shaped us into front door welcome mats.
Thoughts like this get me in trouble,
They roll around in my head with the boulders and rubble.

I have a disorder of only being happy in the sun,
For the rest of the year I’m not that much fun.
But when there is an orange in the sky,
Being close to me will make you believe you can fly.

I had a dream about my sister standing by,
I said sister here is what I know,
In your love, my salvation lies.
I don’t have a sister.
She never was born so she never dies.

Sometimes my mind is too strong to carry on.
My mind is a razorblade, not something to be leaned on.
You asked me to be somebody, with a gun in your hand
I was going to be somebody but this wasn’t my plan.

I used to be a lunatic for all to see,
But now the linguistic language is leaving me.
My aching heart will bleed as I write,
I don’t know why I’m writing this tonight,
Trying to make some sense of it all,
But I’m seeing it makes no sense at all.

Seasons came and changed the time.
I remember when we used to play,
I called you mine?
Until this day sometimes I cry,
I didn’t take the time to lie.

I’ve had my fights,
Often I’ve been blown into the night,
I won’t give in,
If you’re too nice, you’ll never win.

Something told me to run,
There were sounds in my head,
A little boy that was whispering,
I should go and this should end,
Find myself some stable men.

I don’t know if I can stand another hand upon you,
All I know is that I should.
She will love you more than I ever could,
She who dares to stand where I stood.

I heard the door slam,
I looked the other way.
I hate the small talk and the empty days.
Somehow silver lining will have to take your place.
I’m scared of the things that people say.

I feel the worlds weight upon my breaking back,
I see uncertainty and my visible cracks,
But I’ll always believe in your right to shine.
So selfish, two words that could describe actions of mine.

I have been here many times before.
Hurt myself again today.
And the worst part is there is no one else to blame.

I am small.
And needy.
Warm me up.
And breathe me.

You’re so simple and so bare.
You wrapped me in cotton and stored me beneath your stairs.
And still my butterflies are hanging there.

My pillow is a bad body double,
It’s full of stuffing and shallow.
Things are not always how they seem.
They don’t always stay how they've been.

My heart can’t take this cover up.
I left you. Gave you up.
You seem as happy as you’ve ever been.
I'm glad you're happy though I'm quickly turning green.

I want to lie in my bed and do nothing,
But I close my eyes and see something,
I close my eyes and you’re there,
Smiling with the summer playing through your hair.
But then the picture fades and goes,
And you're crying, begging me please don’t go.

I don’t want to be the girl who never wants to be alone.
I don’t want to be the girl who’s never home.
It’s not the way I want my story,
It's not the way I'd pictured glory.

The quiet scares me because it screams the truth,
The night is calling and cursing my youth,
It whispers to me softly to come and play,
If I let myself fall I’m the one to blame.

How do I feel this good so low?
I'd forgotten my warmth and glow.
I’ve missed the still of the silence,
I’ve missed my faith and my science,
I’ve missed the sound of your voice,
It used to be the loudest thing in my head,
Instead I'm screaming silently in bed.
Begging for you to make me believe, make me forget.

But for tonight,
You would not believe,
That ten thousand fireflies,
Will light up the world as I fall asleep.

Tonight,
My disco ball is just hanging by a thread and the earth spins slowly as I lie in bed.
Why do I tire from counting sheep?
I’m far too tired to fall asleep.
Tonight, everything is never as it seems.
Tonight, I’ll make myself believe my pillow is you as I fall asleep.

War on Love

Dipping and diving,
This war on love is conniving.
Pushed up against the bark of a tree,
My gun holster pressing against my knee.

The world is not enough,
I can not stop,
To take this shot and eat you up.
Gargantuan lips pricked by thorns,
Puffy elixirs paired with little tricksters.
Knights, Spartans and GI Joes fall to the ground in great repose,
Lucky to be me, pushed up against the bark of a tree.

Bullets wiz by and one slices my eye,
Welled up tears come rolling free.
Harder to shoot when you see the real me?
Pushed up against the bark of a tree,
My gun holster pressing against my knee.

Night rolls in and the battles wanes,
The dead bodies lie and rot in vain.
Tucked in the meadow, in a hollowed nook.
I take from my satchel a favoured book,
Stoke the fire and brew some tea.
My back still pushed up against the bark of this tree.

My head slowly lingers on the precipice of sleep,
The dead bodies begin to dance and tweak,
The tea was stronger than it seemed to be.
Pink and purple flash through the sky,
Two lovers intertwined in the stars up high.
I watch them and wonder when can they be me?
My heart and soul start to take flight.
I can feel my breath getting light,
My eyes seem a little too bright.
If someone had of seen me on that subjugated evening,
They would have found my perception deceiving.
For I was lost in myself and making love to no one,
My back pressed up against the bark of some ole’ tree,
My gun holster hanging loosely around my knee.

Gas Leak

Let me press you,
My question is this…
Do you ever care to feel sand beneath your feet and smattered in between your toes?

I do not understand his preemptive question and I shake my head. I keep on driving, the European motor shudders as my leg stiffens and hits the accelerator.
There is gas in the cockpit of the car. I can smell it. I lift my nose and sample the air. I’m almost sure of it. Is the gas seeping from the engine through the air vents? I close them but still the thick smell hangs in the air, I can feel it all around me, thickening the air I’m breathing and striking the back of my throat as it passes through my nostrils. I turn to look at him, to see if there is any recognition on his face but his eyes are far off gazing into the muddy cornfields whizzing by. I don’t have to ask him, I know he can’t smell the gas. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of asking if he can smell the rancid scent wafting in the space between us. He’d smile, maybe even laugh up into the air, not a haughty hysteria but a quiet chuckle showcasing his cool aversion to my quixotic nerves. Apparently my neuroses are amusing. I think he’d enjoy watching me sweat and bite my lip the entire car trip then spend an evening surrounded by naked, gyrating females at the Cherry Patch Ranch II in the Nevada Desert. The smell is becoming stronger; it’s going to catch any minute now. One spark and we’re goners.

I want to feel you.

Excuse me?

He laughs upwards, throwing his mirth into the air like a ragdoll.

I want to feel your idea out. You know?
Let’s just talk. You can’t be silent the whole car trip.
We might as well deal with it now while we have all this empty time.
What’s your idea again?
That we remain professional, colleagues?
Is that what you meant in the email?
Because quite frankly if that’s what you want then I think I should start looking for a new job.

He glances at me furtively.
Don’t do it I’m thinking. Just drive. Don’t do it and then he makes the fatal mistake.

I know this job is important to you. You’ve worked hard, really hard but I can’t sit back and watch you do this.

“Do what?” I think but then I realize where the gas is coming from. It’s clearly emanating from his bowlers hat. I want to grab the felt brim and chuck his hat out the window but before I can snatch it he grabs my hand and laces his fingers through mine. As I feel his fingers touch my clammy palms I realize his fatal error and moments after the air bursts into flames. The heat is unbearable instantaneously and the windows shatter as the oxygen is sucked from my lungs.

I’m proud of you, I really am and don’t take this offer as me being presumptuous because I’m not but I just can’t sit back and not be honest.

He’s still talking? He should be screaming, this burns and the leather is curling off my seat and my fingers are welding to the steering wheel.

But I want you to work with me.
I know it’s far away and a new territory for you but you and I have the same eye; we’d make a great team.

My eyes are liquefying like mercury and they ran down my face and fall into my lap.
I can’t turn the steering wheel and I am coming up on a corner that I know I can’t take.
I’m going to have to take us through the corn fields.

I think you should pull over you don’t look well…

Fingers grip tighter as I brace myself for the lip on the road to end.

Just pull over! Pull over god damn it.

Hands grab the steering wheel and pull sharply to the right. I can hear the gravel as it pelts the under carriage of the car and my foot instinctively slams on the brakes.
I jerk my head to the passenger seat and I notice he has taken his bowler hat off. Finally! Now if I can just get him to throw it out the window.
The air is cool, he is opening the windows.

You need to breathe, just breathe.

Love is a word, love is a doing verb.

What? You’re talking nonsense… we don’t have to talk about this just forget it for now. Let me drive and we can just get there. We can worry about it another time.

I watch him get out the passenger side and slowly makes his was around the hood, his bowler’s hat is back on his head. Shit!

My door opens and his hand is waiting for mine.

Come on, get out – get some fresh air. We’re ten miles for the next gas station – I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.

No, I’m driving; we don’t need to go to a gas station. I don’t want anymore gas.

What? Are you insane? You were screaming just a couple minutes ago, saying you were on fire! Do you remember that?

I’m driving! I’ll drive you all the way to the Cherry Patch Ranch II if I have to but I’m not taking your hand.

You’re daft! Get… out…. of the…. car.

He places his hands underneath my arms and lifts me out of the seat. The fabric of my whole being catches fire this time. My bones shatter, my femurs turn to dust, my heart valves constrict, my veins and arteries reverse flow.

I’m dying. I’m screaming, I’m dying – let me go.

The sky turns an eerie forest green and the clouds being to swirl and twirl above our heads. The landscape jostles as the wind whips at the tops of the corn. He holds me closer and a voice rings through my ears.

You’re just being born my dear.

A huge thunderclap booms from the sylvan clouds and a lightning bolt strikes the car. We are knocked off our feet.

Breathe, the voice says. Breathe baby, breathe.