It took me one sleepless night of writing
poems about you 
poems about us
of quietly suffering under the sheets of my bed
of letting the darkness around me enter
of letting desire consume my head.

It took me one sleepless night of writing
to promise I'll always put myself first
to hold my own hand
to lift myself up 
when I'm at my worst.

Because darling, you may have the most tender fingers
But who got me out of the sheets today?
It was myself
because I'm here alone
and you are so many miles          a w a y.

i am cheap logic
bought from a man on the side of the street
who says it's the real stuff, nothing but the best
and i guess you believed him, i guess optimism ran in your veins that day
and i should be glad, really
except you've been tricked, and the man
walks away laughing with your petty change in his pocket
glancing back to grin at your smiling face
as you slip your arm around my waist
and i pretend to be worth it

dress me up, because i'm tired of painting myself
i just wanna hear your description
i like it better than mine
take me out, at least as far as the road
to show me why i usually stay at home

i am a solid shell
this logic has been welded into my surface
and i make sense, just ask anyone
i am a rock, i am an unmoving blanket
i am a hand to hold, a smile to be reflected
i am a solid shell
within which the logic falls apart

too bad wandering gypsies
don't give refunds, eh?
you'll never track him down

be my computer genius, crack this code
make me logic from spinning numbers
make me make sense
make me make sense
make me make sense

keep the optimism running in your veins
i like you that way

i am an old soul
in young love and out of body
i have ceased to hide

shut out the light
shut out the sunshine that reminds me
of how much i will have changed
when i leave this place

i have hardened my skin and my resolve
to ignore time until it favours me again
i can't stop the shifting days, and i don't want to
but i can't hurry them along either
and i need to

basic needs will be met, sure
but you are more than just basic

you are complicated and simple
and everything in between a smile and laugh
that i have memorized and forgotten and saved again
a million times

shut out the light
and take it from me, take whatever you need
take it all before i notice the change
that pervades the air here
as my skin darkens and my smile tightens
and my resolve buries itself deep in the places
where winter still keeps me pale
and you still keep me warm

i'd take a whole summer of this grey sky
just to know you were spending your time
under sunshine

spent years wandering halls
cutting the "i" from my sentences
forming words from vowels
and emotions from consonants
hard and solid, but nothing
without that internal structure

guess that describes me pretty well
all consonants, harsh "t" and definite "d"
and the ever-slippery "y", like me
never making up its mind

felt like a half-learned language
still do, really
like someone forgot to learn the proper nouns
forgot to turn the sentence around
grab the sound and speak it

there's an accent colouring my life
awkward and stuttering, unsure
and never fluent enough
to step in time with the music
for long enough to make it matter

words from vowels
and emotions from consonants
hard and solid, but nothing
without that internal structure

Your body is a language I would like to be fluent in.