I am my father's daughter.
I'm a dreamer, and a fighter.
My morals are few and thin,
And I've never quite fit in.

I am my mother's daughter.
But less so than my father's.
And oh what a sin it is.
That she hoped I'd be hers, more than his.

If my dad were still alive, he'd say,
"Kyra I didn't raise you to be this way,"
"I'm so disappointed in you, you're squandering your youth,"
"Didn't amount to much in College, and can't keep a job,"
"You're lazy and a slob, and I don't like your tattoos,"
"I think you cut your hair too short,"
"I don't know what to do with you,"
He'd say, "Your financial skills are lacking, you run off with those the same gender as you,"
"And you're always moving around, with your head in the clouds."
And I know it's all true.
But daddy, I grew up to be just like you.

I want to be beautiful poetry, but instead I am vapid stanzas,
An indrawn breath between the lines.
The dampened air before the rain, and the traffic light that never turns
I am the catch in a song and the dying embers of firelight,
I am an inland lighthouse.
I am an abandoned wasps' nest and a mangy alley cat,
A tarnished ring in a landfill,
But I am also pearlescent, the destination after a long journey,
Beautiful, in its own way.

There's a ghost of a man who cared,
And I wonder.
If there's no turning back, why is my heart on full attack?
For a man who was never there.

How much is a memory?
Burned feet on the hot concrete?
A skinned knee or a papercut?
Maybe it's the wasted nights, or a dead phone,
Lonely nights spent at home
Waiting on something to "be"
Something worth being happy,
Until you find it, and smile,
The one memory that makes it all worthwhile.

The table is empty, the chairs are gone,
But I don't have the heart to see it end
I guess I'll have to mask my tears and pretend.

I sell dreams and memories at the marketplace,
In a back alley of this bustling city
We set up our stalls at noon, or 3, or we don't set up at all
Every third Sunday, or second Saturday
Amid the leather rings and pastel postcards and records,
Of artist that have yet to be,
I stand against an old brick wall with a hat at my feet
"Buy a dream, sweetest of black cherries,
Dripping waterfalls and lovers' gazes,"
I chant throughout the day.
I've got a little notepad with a magic pen,
They draw a circle and they see
Confused and drunk they sway before me,
Hooked on whatever plays behind their eyelids
They touch, taste, smell, hear, whatever I wish them to
"Buy a memory, repressed or treasured, melancholy extra,
3 quid for a memory"
Therapists have sent weary patrons traveling far and wide to me
I see their suspicious eyes as they throw money my way,
Some regulars come to me as druggies,
Some need me more than others,
They leave me bright-eyed but weary,
I never give a fantasy for free.

You keep going. You cut your losses and believe in your dreams and keep trying, even if all you take are small steps. You keep going.
Because trying is valid and trying is monumental and trying is okay because trying means effort and trying can be doing or can be nothing but trying is still another step, another day, another breath, another sentence, another goal, another intention
When the depression and hallucinations and hyper sensitivity and drone and anxiety and disassociation and vices and losses and hurts and exhaustion flood and you just, can't, anymore, you must
You keep going.

Someone slipped into my bed, last night
Carrying the scent of my perfume
They lifted the covers and curled against me
I turned and threw my legs over their slight, lithe frame
I awoke much the same, but alone, with the distinct feeling,
Someone slipped into my bed, last night

For what was once a saving grace,
I have now begun to suffer,
As all things I had once loved,
Have become burdens, undercover.

I am lost and alone in an empty home,
With as many tears as would make a sea,
I have written and fought and gallantly lost,
I have utterly forgot how to be me

But its etiquette has not.
Then there's its religion, prevalent, instilled.
Farms tilled the way their grandfathers' tilled.
Castles in ruins, or castles renovated,
They want to preserve, or let themselves become jaded,
On the richer histories this country provides,
They create better legends to tell tourists, all lies
"Here's the old world", they cry.
And the economy, the people, the change,
They tie it all up until only a mock-up remains,

I want to go where the lost stars went,
Where the sky is made of glitter, and the seas of gel,
And the earth is pliant and gold
I want to go where dreams are corporeal and silver tinged,
Where the men color their eyelashes, purple and blue,
And the beds are made of feathers and the juice of plum wine,
I want to go where no one is alone, and the music boxes play,
Such sweet melodies of old love, encompassing love,
And you can travel the world in just one day
I want to go where the greatest stories went,
Where they color their world with watercolor sunsets every night,
And the found owls and water rats cry to the moon, so close you could hold it
I want to go, oh I want to go.

When you left them, they all gathered
On a moonlit night,
Their hearts as candles to the vigil
And their mothers swooned, when they heard the news,
And their daughters sang a rock-n-roll Hallelujah.

Your words came back to them,

And the salt from the tears wept over your star,
All the glitter swept up from the wind,
Though the flowers have all dried out,
The streets you walked will never be the same.
You're still changing us all over again, to-day,
May your music forever play

I just want the world to believe again
I want the late greats to give way to the latest greats
I want the childhood simplicity of putting stickers on paper
I want to feel the water as I sink in deeper
I want to lounge on a hill without getting hayfever
I want technology to advance and drinking water to be readily available
I want the world to believe again
I just can't leave it like this

And use the term to bind you,
Though you are no lover of mine
Kindred, and companion, we each walk the streets
Longing for the nights that take us far away
Love, for the sake of love, for the sake of feeling loved
For no other reason, do I love you
I cannot gift you casual intimacy, nor friendly kisses,
As my best friends here gift me upon parting.
Though I admit that I love you, love you dearly,
Seeking not to question, but to love, to say that in this world,
There is at least someone whose love is not greedy,
Not dependent, and not a burden of sorrow.
That I may love you, and love you anyway, and love you still,
Though we may not meet again.
That is my love.

My dreams are drying out by the salty shore
I may build sandcastles and rocky bridges until
The waves wash them out again, laughing as the surf
Swallows my ankles,
Forgetting the cuts and the burns and the tattoos
Sand between my toes and sun pink cheeks I may,
Forget I'm trying to hold on so tight, to dreams that easily
Slip away in the morning fog, I might catch them,
In a butterfly net, through the lamp of a lighthouse,
I might catch them like crawdads and lizards and keep them in jars,
To keep me company through lonely nights, like fireflies,
I might just make them stay, but for now they are dying
As short lived as mayflies and as easy to pass as a summer's cold,
Like music in the witching hour, hidden among the hills
Impossible to pinpoint, like thunder, rolling as ancient wars
Sitting here, letting tears seep from my eyes like steam from a kettle,
I wipe them off with a ***** dishtowel and wait
For my dreams to come home, like teenage runaways,
Or selkies upon the moor,
If I make it through tonight, if I make it through high tide,
If I make it through tonight.

I could not blame him for his fool heart,
Not his love for me nor his parting
That he write me in good spirits or low.

Finding no fault in his intentions,
I suppose I'm content to let him,

We are but two rivers on opposite courses
If we have the same origin, or deposit,
I do not claim to know

I could no more blame him for his fool heart,
Than blame myself for mine.

I want nothing to do with your ill cigarette
Rolled by filthy fingers
Cushioned by pretty, mock-up lips
I just want to lay beside you,
Without tasting your ***** breath
I just want to lay beside you,
Like we're going to live.

Full moon o'er me,
Same sky o'er you

Calm, it holds me like a love song
Spice, your scent wraps me like a love song
But the music, O, it permeates low and sad
For these dreams shall leave me short of waking
The night is all we have,
It stays through the wanting, a pause between a key
The wind shall move with ease, betwixt these
Hollow desires of mine
So gather me close, 'fore the night grows long
Melt within the hope, safe, whole and warm
For once, let not the fates divide us, but entwine.

There is a day that will not come,
There is an hour I will not meet
There is a morning I shall not rise
There is a night I may transcend sleep
But there will never be a day I do not think of you
There will never be an hour I do not wish for another
There is not a morning I do not cherish for its dawn
There is not a night that will scare away my songs
Tomorrow. For all my tomorrows. Until there is a day,
When all my tomorrows end.

You look at me,
Filled with adoration and pride.
You look to me,
For a love I fear I cannot hide.
You look at me,
With trepidation and disappointment,
You look at me one moment,
Like I'll shy away, like you want me near,
Then you look at me,
Like I am stronger than I appear,
Still you look at me.
Dismissive or attentive,
And I look at you, oh yes I look at you,
Look on with pride, with love, with fear
I look at you, like you'll never see me looking,
Like I'm too afraid to show my feelings,
Like I don't see you watching too,
When I look at you
What are you feeling, I wonder, what must I be?
That you look at me.

.

It's bad again, wish I could tell you different
That the laundry and trash aren't piling up
Tell you I don't have to talk myself down from panic attacks
I get them every other day and some days, twice
I wish I could tell you anything at all, but I'm coping
Hopefully I'm coping.
I wish I could tell you I make more than I spend
I wish I could say I'll come home for a weekend
And when my ex sent me old photos from a vacation,
I wish I could tell you I'm still the girl who's in them

You sound so dead,
Your voice isn't making its way to me,
Leave a message saying, left a message,
Could you be holed up with a bottle?
Could you be waiting on somebody?
I can't afford to grab your tab anymore,
Baby but your tears are killing me,
You say they kick you when you're down,
I saw the mud on your shirt
You say you've nobody to turn to,
Your feelings are always hurt
But I get the messages too late to pick you up
I just can't pick up
Why do you always leave a message if I'll never pick up?

We sat together on the sidewalk of another ***** street. Street lights burned, it was during the quiet of the early hours of morning.
Not quite looking at each other, not quite looking away, he pulled a pack from his motorcycle jacket.
He held it out to me, I hesitated.
"It's a contract," he offered as explanation to a question I didn't ask. "Do you know the deal?"
I frowned, eyes and mind too muddy to do anything but rest heavy. "No." I tried, then thought before trying again. "It'll **** me," I processed, mouth forming the words slowly, though my tone betrayed me as steady and sure. "In the end. Won't it?"
He must have nodded beside me. He was watching me then, taking in my hunched shoulders against the cold, bones that should be young and healthy making me as gaunt and tired as I felt.
"How long do you have?" I whispered.
That haunted gaze of his wavered, sliding from my lips to my eyes, while I still faced away, faced forward. We were two strangers on different paths. Similar, yet parallel, not meant to cross.
He opened his mouth, calculating. "A few years," he offered. "Less than you." And I laughed.
A small, mocking thing. "That's debatable." Came out before I could stop to understand. I tensed, maddened, and that's when I looked at him. "What is the deal?"
Facing me head on, he didn't look shocked, no malaise tinted our conversation. "It'll **** you," he mimicked me, I felt like he was mimicking me, before he continued. "But first, it will save you."
The intone of his sentence nearly made me choke. He offered the pack again.
"When will it call collect?" I muttered, but he must have dismissed it.
We sat for a bit longer as I slid a smoke out from the package and lit up with the help of his lighter, his hands shielding the flame to keep it steady.
He looked at me, like I'd just made a promise to him that I couldn't keep, that he would make good on in the end. "You want it to save you," He told me quietly. I wasn't listening anymore. I wasn't listening.
"You want it to save you, you want it to **** you,"
In a moment he was gone and I mourned the loss.
Unsung clauses in my mind, his voice soft and loving to my ear. "I'll be there when it does,"
Because maybe, maybe I wanted that, too.

She's slowing down, she's not as strong as she once was
I can't breathe, I'm not as young as I once was
She asks how can she can live it down, all the pain that she's fought through
Don't know when, when I gave up the follow through
And she's down on her knees, ****** knuckles in the sand
If this war is over, why am I still living it
There's a monster she killed, she killed but she became it, screaming
If only I knew then what I know now
She'd turn the gun around, and **** the one she was meant to

Now she tells her jokes to herself and I don't get to hear
And she's somewhere warm and safe, I dream about her there

Where are you going at 2am?
Left a light on for someone who never came home
Kept alive the herbs in your pocket-
Tried to sit down, tried to walk it off
Your phone is dead when nobody's around
And the whole town is sleeping
I wonder where, you wonder, they've been?
Worrying over an empty bed and a low gas tank
Until 4am, then, I guess the world comes back around
And you lay to rest, all the answers you haven't found

Though in my heart, where the footsteps of strangers linger,
dusted by the ashes of my torches burning
Pyres,
There is nothing softer than the vastness of our different worlds
In which for my expression
There is nothing more silent than the words.
So let me say them, let me sound them off in time,
To the clank of the weights wound ‘round your feet,
And the drums in your mind,
To a future reminiscent
Of your heart’s steady beat.

Let it be mine.

He met me at the Pacific Ocean that night.

      I was trying to keep a candle lit against the wind, cupping my hand around it. As it sputtered and bent, I thought about December. About snow piling up on the driveway, banks folding over themselves in the fields. The river would be frozen over. The pipes would freeze, rickety houses huddled against the cold. I shivered, moving my hand closer to the wick, bowed over it like I kept the holy flame itself. I regretted not bringing a coat, knowing the spray and chill would numb me as ever. As it did when I’d take myself out into the black, walking into the ocean dark as an abyss. Waiting for its tide to swallow me and floating, sometimes in jeans, sometimes in a dress, seldom in bathing attire. Throwing aside the weight of the world, and I miss those endless moments spent wading out alone. The candle almost went out, and my heart remembered to forget a beat.

     I couldn’t hear him as he walked. The sand muffled his bare feet. Weathered, calloused feet, tired from stress and work. Not like his hands. Despite the heavy lifting, despite below freezing temperatures, despite nicks and scrapes and a rough life, his hands were always soft. Gentle as he’d pet the coat of his dog. Careful as he’d hold a bottle of wine, or hold me. As perfect as the silt constantly smoothed by the salty sea, which ebbed and swept in my ears.

     When he was close enough, he stood before me, blocking out the moon. I never looked up. Eyes dancing in the fire, daring myself to cry and **** it early. I felt the warmth off him like a hot spring pool at Yellowstone. The overwhelming sense of safety, of relief, overridden by fear.

     The light had to go out. I told him, that by all accounts, he was late. Ever late. 9, we’d said. I wished he would say sorry. I wished he’d take my hands and put his forehead to mine. Oh, but he wouldn’t say or do anything. Perhaps he was sad, in those last moments. While I thought about summer, careless laughter and harmless dares and then, then I did let the tears flow. Maybe if I’d looked at his face, maybe then I would have seen in his eyes. The reason. Always the reason.

     I was trying to turn into a shadow against the moonlight, pulling my knees to my chest. As he took the candle from me. As he blew it out, I thought, but I never looked. I could hear his footsteps, then, plodding away from me. Loud in my head, quiet acceptance in my heart. As I sniffled and coughed, I thought about spring. I took my thoughts away, somewhere new. Where flowers were starting to bud, where a newborn bird hopped around my feet. I thought about wine, and plane tickets, and Christmases that would never come. About lights, and time, and faulty wiring.

          It would never have survived.

You thought you'd be,
A temporary bandaid,
You tried to help me out for your own sake,
And I thought it was real
But you never wanted to stay part of me
And when you rip yourself away,
I'm going to bleed.

Wrapped up in all this hurt,
We can't heal each other
Try to put the pain to words,
Why do I even bother?
Through this hate and animosity,
You say you wanted to be closer,
But I know you just want to be free
So be free

This is life, not heaven, and when our angels cry,
We cry with them