The heart of the matter

I can’t open my eyes to this place,
this clumsy card house one breath away from crumbling,
instead I hold this stale air for too long
and sigh to push past the past and complicated days
of a young girl strangled by secrets, asleep too long.

While swept off into a whirlwind of ideas, I find you there,
and I’m struggling, reaching for your hand to steady mine
but the whispers spinning ‘round your ears
are telling you to be afraid, to walk away,
to cast my heart back into place.

But I’ll tell you now that it’s too late, it’s been a screaming power trip
and you’re the one who lingers in chameleon ways
of inappropriate quiet minds that trick us into loving.

Who you know and where you go all in a day
of work and smirks or dazed notions of safe words
that never work out anyway, they’re too well known,
are singing and dreaming out of order.

So I find it absurd the way I turn and blind my mind to you
when my clumsy card house has been blown away
and matched in footsteps, pace by pace, where you belong.

Whatever happened to disregards and songs that match our thoughts
or make us laugh in ridiculous categories?

Seems they’ve scattered across the burning skies
and left us here to deal with our years ago, twisted into somebody
who lives for the soft touches and light grins,
but wishes for the face-to-face confrontations of fists against the bone.

Now coming closer to bubbling nights and skin against skin
I find a way from lethal truths that cross the sanded lies
that have rocked back and forth in the grip of a mother/fathers arms.

And getting studied, going steady along the I-want-you-too licks
and stolen kisses on the beds of engraved stones,
lack the ears to hear you near like there’s a murmur in the hall
and you haven’t called, still not willing to admit you’re feet are on the floor.

And so I’m light out of place behind the quiet lovers stage
even when I want to hear the words echo in acoustic ends,
but I’m not ready to combine the strength and speak a single word myself
so they’re nothing but hypocritical lines to cross and uncross
…
I think I’ll tie them like shoestrings around our fingers.