Humiliation and Healing

For Caitlin: may he be but a bitter line in a memoir otherwise filled with love and beauty

I thought that someday I'd be strong,
I thought that I'd be fine,
but someday can't come soon enough
when all you have is time.
It's funny, though you've won the battle,
I will win the war;
for though you were my everything,
another will be more.
You're something less than human
yet, you think you're far above.
You, my friend, are lonely:
incapable of love.
Of myself I make a fool;
lose composure, lose my pride,
but you have lost much more than that
you're empty deep inside.
So next time cavalries should meet
I will not surrender or retreat.
I will look you in the eyes
and sweetly will I say,
"I wish you all which you deserve
and have a pleasant day."
For you'll deserve whatever comes,
whatever your life brings:
You will get your fire
and I will get my wings.
And maybe I'm still hurting;
still fragile and afraid,
but none of that can be as bad
as the bed, yourself, you've made.

For Cryin' Out Loud

For crying out loud, for crying out loud—
Half this damn world is crying out loud!
Babe got no mama now mom with no papa:
Works for two weeks to make less than a dollar.
Saves all she gets to send it back home.
Some day they’ll come but for now she’s alone
No food to eat she sleeps out on the street,
Pleads for some kindness from strangers she meets
His dad kicked him out when he was fifteen
For five lonely years, begs for change as he bleeds.
Depressed and confused and hating her life,
She writes on her arms with the point of a knife.
Up on the bridge he looks down on the water
Today he’s a man; tomorrow a martyr.
Raped by her elder abused by her chief
Every night she cries herself to sleep.

For crying out loud, for crying out loud—
Half this damn world is crying out loud!
Slowly the glimmer fades out of his eyes
Losing to AIDs in the fight of his life
Make up and smiles as hard as she tries
Can’t mask the bruises she’s keeping inside
Pretends he don’t know where she’s goin’ each night
He hates this but loves her—pretends they’re alright
She dances at night to pay all her bills
Tries to escape and gets high on some pills
Stands on the corner; prays for relief
She’s selling her soul for a few bites to eat
A gun on his belt, a grenade in his hand,
Just ten years old but he kills like a man.
Innocent blood spilt in ignorant hate
Violence your censors can never erase

Every heart, every eye, every voice is starting to cry
For crying out loud—jut say it aloud
Every soul is crying out loud…

Drive

The proposition’s simple just an easy evening ride
through twists and turns and bridges down into the country side
where magpies squawk and cattle moo--
Misty rays of light come shining through;
Where left is right and up is down
as I’m driving through this town.

Searching for the tree of life on roads I’ve never known.
Wondering where I’m going next; how far I am from home.
Hide away and hide it well
through the paths and hazel dells.
Completely dry but I almost drown
as I’m driving through this town.

Thirty, forty, fifty-five; last thing I want to do is drive.
It’s fucked up just how numb you feel when you realize you’re alive.
I’m flying blindly in endless night,
on and on till the next red light.
Feels like time is slowing down
as I’m driving through this town.

Passing things I know that I barely recognize:
trees and signs and yellow lines melt together in my eyes.
I’d stop but will pushes me: go faster
fighting to see who’s slave, who’s master?
Am I to be the king or clown
as I’m driving through this town?

Scenery floats in waves as I stand still in this place;
paranoid that all I’m feeling’s written on my face.
Afraid to look away or blink,
like something’s always on the brink--
But everything is safe and sound
as I’m driving through this town.

Swirling shades of evening rest inside my weary head.
I wonder if I’m dreaming and I wonder if I’m dead.
Removed from time, removed from space,
removed from all but this very place.
I feel the whole world spinning round
as I’m driving through this town.

Odd how you can be so lost but know exactly where you are;
I can’t even see the sky I’m too entranced in all the stars.
Roll it down wind hits my cheek,
I cannot bring myself to speak.
Not quite glad, but I can’t frown
as I’m driving through this town.

Heroine

I cannot let you in my veins or deep into my heart;
Darling if I fell for you, you know I'd fall apart.
You're beautiful, cerebral, and almost like a god,
but in your new religion you are all I just nod.
I wish that we could marry and I would be your wife
but given time and weakness, you'd take from me my life.
Wish you could be my hero, I, your heroine divine,
but I've known too many heroes who turned out to be a lie.
For if I ever loved you, loved you even for a day,
my whole world would vanish; my life would fade away.
And though the rush I'd feel would be deeper than a high,
I cannot let me love you, not even for a night.
For loves like you adorn my past with fallacies and pain;
I can't traverse that road, can't walk down that path again.
I've spiraled like a shooting star in shadow of the moon,
I cannot fall so far so fast, not again so soon.
You'd be pulsing through my blood, a part of what I am,
yet, you'd lead me into slaughter, Love, and I am not your lamb.
I will not be your Juliet, I can't lay down and die;
in your tragedy you die alone and to the sun I fly.
Love, I know you, what you are, and how your poison scars:
you taint the simple melody and black out all the stars.
I saw the poor soul you loved last, despondent and strung out,
praying for a savior, though she wasn't a devout.
And the love before, you left alone; gluing back the shards
of the life she used to know 'fore your love tore it apart.
So from your sordid past I'll learn:
run before there's a bridge to burn
I am not your heroine, my hero you cannot be;
for I would lose my life, Love, if I let you love me.

For Judas

Ever since I heard your story--
Spun and slandered, void of glory--
I wondered why they hated you;
Can’t they see they’re sinners too?
For years you patiently obeyed
But all that matters is whom you betrayed.
A simple kiss for a simpler coin;
A necessary evil you couldn’t avoid.
If God has a plan innately divine,
You were just one soul entwined.
Maybe your part was already written--
And maybe you have been forgiven.
But no one else sees you like I
I doubt a soul has even tried.
For you were the scapegoat: born to be hated.
The good you did never to be stated.
Took your humanity to make an example,
Damned in every Holy Bible…
Frozen in a lake of ice in the deepest, darkest sphere
Or burning in eternal fire far below us here.
Forgive them; they know not what they do;
They cannot see what really is you.
Yet, I’ve always felt I knew your pain,
I knew the way you felt each day
And I’d have ended my life as well
Rather than live each day in hell.

The Silent Song of the Lonely Heart

Somewhere dark and somewhere deep
Lie hidden secrets which she keeps:
Feelings she can never share
But keeps them always silent there
Words her tongue will never utter
Not to herself; not to another
Simple, quiet desperation
Loneliness and isolation
Memories of better years
Of peaceful nights devoid of tears...
Her tired hand, she reaches up
But gets no help from those above.
She lies to all and to herself;
She can’t admit when she needs help.
Her burdens too much for her only,
There is no solace for the lonely.
The only peace she found in sleep
Silent, dark, eternal, deep…

You Didn't Say You Loved Me

I didn't know you loved me
'Til I saw your heart was broken
That I should leave you all alone
To start a new life on my own--
And this from you I've stolen.
I don't know if Webster or Shakespeare or Austin
Could give words to describe just the way that I love him:
Eloquently understated,
Overwhelming, underrated...
I can't even breathe.
Now I don't want to leave.
And if we're meant to last,
We'll be standing in the end.
And if you're just my past,
A tear stained letter I will send
Telling you goodbye my love;
For once in life I'll cry my love.
I don't know if poets in eighty score years
Will be moved to smile silent or brush away tears
At the beauty,
At the grace
Of the look
Upon your face...
You need not say a word;
My stoic heart has heard.
And as I smile with my eyes
My lips will say their last goodbyes.
Are we dead or sleeping?
I know we must be dreaming.
It seems too good, it can't be real
And I know exactly how you feel.
I didn't know you loved me
Until I saw your heart was broken,
But the shady groves which call me--
Fenced by jasmine and the sea--
Know what your heart had spoken
When you didn't say you loved me.