They stick their knives and forks in me
Coz a dinner they have made
They want to serve me up
Then say that I am saved
Do all in their power
To quietly persecute
Everything that is good
And is based in Truth
And do I falter on the brink
Do I let the ship go down
Do I be the King and Queen
The ocean of this town
Ever to inspire
The faint of heart with lies
But I tire
Of all your futile tries 
And kicking it with the cool
As a beat finds my feet
And I find the love 
Like the first time he and I meet
And all their cattle prods
And their medication
Is not enough 
To get me to skip this station

That underdog fire
Burns in the hearth
It’s there in the dawn
It’s there when it’s dark
And its flames don’t burn
But they consume
All the air that’s left in the room
Til you’re busy frying pans
Over its heat
Take your shoes off
Warm up your feet
And see the stars in all their glory
Come to tell some kind of story
In the midnight tomes
And the keeping safe in all our homes
Do you venture out
And if you do so, is it with doubt
Or do you keep
An element of fire
In your soul so you can take it higher
When the breeze blows and all the leaves
Are lost to anyone who would believe
Do you nurture that spark
It’s effervescent, it’s a work of art
And it’ll keep you safe and be a reminder
Of peace and love when you need to find her
Don’t wait, join and discover 
Everyone is your sister and brother
To some degree
I have to say, it lit the heart of me

Before I splintered
I had a dream
One where I
Didn’t have to be queen
But could meet a guy
On equal footing
No open doors 
To the sound of shutting
But I remember 
Dreaming in my bed
Of a football jacket
Leaning against a locker
No words but he’s a show stopper 
As I put away my books
I know I’m deep
Coz I have roots
But you’re in yellow
With dark skin
And I’m fourteen
It’s just me and him
And I must have been less than twelve
Maybe eleven
Coz I’m in my old room
The one that’s green
And I’m not ready
But I will be soon
Fast forward four years
And I’m torn apart
Beaten down
Shattered in the heart
For the love of all
I can’t contain
And all I can focus on
Is the pain
The ripping sound
From inside
And all I can do is hide
Behind my A1’s
But I’m haunted by imaginary guns
As they shoot me down
Although I run
Though that was before
I saw the sun
And I fell to my knees
Shining from on high
At one hundred degrees 
And I kept a locket
Of what had knocked me down

Banking on the sky to take me home
But all I do is feel more alone 
Than I have ever felt before 
I can’t ask you again and what’s more
It’s like a wall has risen
Between us, it’s the great schism
And I don’t know if I can cross it
It’s just like I’ve lost it
Trying to find the place I’m near
The ocean reflects what’s crystal clear
In the depths of its own being
What is it you think you’re seeing
When you look at me
It’s like the wings of destiny 
Pulling me toward your subtle gaze
It’s more than the dead that we raise 
When we dance on the street
You’re in everyone that I meet
And it’s like a season that I greet
The boy who makes my heart beat

The jitters
And, time, it fritters
Away like confetti in the wind 
Do you race the stuff you’ve binned 
To get back to where you came from
You look and it’s all gone
It’s all just ash and dust
Ripped wallpaper and broken trust
Like Beyoncé and Jay Z
It’ll never be me
Coz I’ll never let anyone close enough
Hide away behind all my stuff
And keep the wilderness out
You won’t hear “I love you” from this mouth
Well, that was the case til I met you
Now everywhere is fragmentary blue 
Reflecting what I saw on a screen
The light and the dream
That just can’t help waking itself
They call me out on poor mental health
But I just can’t help
Shining like a star
Oh, the wonder of what you are
When I stop my car
To get a look at that sky
I think I’ll worship it til the day I die

The book of the apocalypse is just Armageddon 
It’s that feeling you get when you’re at a wedding
Like somebody’s dropped a stone
Into the ocean of all alone
And it’s just revelation
Do you flick the tv station
When you get bored
Do you hoard
All you have for tomorrow’s days
Keeping wilderness at bay
I’m your garden grown
Is there more than just what’s shown
Coz I can feel the shackles clasp
Like Cleopatra and an asp
To bite (some poison dart)
I sure as hell want no part
Of that broken bargain
And all the jargon
Leads back to the same old thing
What is it that you ring
When you put a gold band on
Is it simply a plan that’s gone
Out of my purveyance
It’s like someone at a seance 
Saying they don’t have time
But I’ve oceans of it and it’s all mine
Some eternity bound
You know it when you hear the sound
And it’s freedom to these wings
The god of love simply sings
When he hears my name
If I’m different it’s coz you’re all the same 

I can’t keep it up
They say it’s love
Like they wanna get the point through
But all I want is you
And the fabric of life is coming apart
In ones and zeros from the heart
The advaita path of the non dual
But if you wanna burn you gotta add fuel
And the sun is some example
Of hyper tonic fusion
Its warmth is a heat that doesn’t need proving 
You just know it by it’s feel
Like an Irish summer you doubt is real
Until you feel the twenty six 
Sizzling away at the sticks 
You left out in the grass
And the kids have a blast
Turning brown in the rays 
And I’m full of would be’s and okays 
To turn my midnight into dawn
But I’d kinda miss the dark if it was gone 
So I hold onto the moment of still
The awning black hole that knows no will
It just opens in my solar plexus 
Like some kind of magic nexus 
To contain
A Pacific’s worth of heavy rain

I used to be socially relevant  
It used to matter that the sky
Was blue as the hue within my eye 
But now a solid grey has overtaken
The land that Simba has forsaken 
For an escape from what he's done
He doesn't see he wasn't the one 
Who held the key
To the death inside of me 
It was a summer note
And now it's gurus that I quote 
To find an adequate reply 
To the opening up in I
Whereupon the notion just contains 
The whole ocean of the cloud that rains 
Down on the parched land 
It's green because love understand 
That you need balance, you need peace
And something in us has got to cease 
As the industrial revolution gathers pace
It's like we're in some kind of race
That's turned into a death spiral twist
Would you know you even exist
If it were not for the fact
That everything gets taken back 
In the end 
And a friend 
Is a friend for life 
Like some people's faithful wife 
And I 
Can't countenance
What was just a stream of events 
That broke in my grasp
I found something that doesn't pass 

The unearthly calm
Rises from within
And it tells me 
You must be with him
And he’s miles away
And a girlfriend down
But he was a hero
Just outside of town
When we were teens 
He was the man of my dreams 
And I spied him through a tiny gap
In the thicket ( I didn’t need a map )
And I had the fear he might find out
So one day I just swallowed my doubt
And professed my love on a screen
Said you are loved by the queen
Of sometime, maybe, I dunno when 
But I swore I wouldn’t speak up again
When you shut that thing down
And I don’t blame you, it’s just the sound
Of the door slamming reverberates 
And every time you move the earth quakes 
And I’m still and then all a-stutter
I catch hold of something that you mutter
As evidence, as proof
That you may not be aloof
And maybe you’re just an emotional male 
Who’s heart is not for sale 
So though I offer a million bucks 
You’re not giving any fucks 
And my respect for you just increase 
That your soul is not for lease
And I fear one or both of us might decease
Before life again lets us meet 

The quietest whisper
The most secret sound
The clue is that
It is all around
Swimming in water
We don’t know the fish
Til it’s served up to us 
On a dish 
And I lost the rag 
I held onto
Got angry at him
Her, them and you
In the storm of the winter
I weathered a foe
Blew shit apart
Coz it would not let go
And I ended up somewhere 
I can’t entertain
Beseeching others 
To hear me in vain
And like the midnight
It comes then it passes
There must be more
Than getting A’s in classes
As I struggle to find 
A deeper hue
A more vibrant red
A more trustworthy blue
And she says the dream
Is all that she knows
He looks to the side 
Like anything goes
But the trinket to find
And then discard
Is all that you have 
When life gets hard
And it picks you up
Like a sullen saviour
Don’t say that you love me
If it means that you hate her

I’m out here on the bridge
Just staring into the dark
And life has come around about 
In an arc
And Brooklyn never looked so tame
Was it ever even worth the name
Of the wilderness years
Crystallizing tears
Into diamonds
To star the sky
And I know some people die
On this scene
But it was enough to wake the dream  
As I shuddered with a start
And Awareness part
From the thought bound grey
And I don’t care what people say
It was the best day of my life
Until the one I became a wife
To your sudden sun
I’m in love and you’re the One

It was a perfect awning
To bridge the gap
And I lose myself 
Looking for a map
To find my place
And I lose face
In the timber as it burns down
There were years I ran this town
Now I just run away
As people’s words ricochet
Against the solid concrete wall
I guess life can play hard ball
When it wants to
I don’t know where I am
But I choose you

The vines they come 
The vines they tie
Is this just life 
Barely getting by
And the shreds of ego 
They justify
What in me
Is not afraid to die
Coz they come with their pills
And their ect 
Am I just attracting it to me
To say that you can go to hell
With the days you wished me well
And told me what I can sustain
Give me something to help with the pain
A non existent foe
If you love me let me go
But they contort me into all sorts of shapes
In the wilderness of my escapes
From Stella ward, I walked to the garden
Til they locked the doors and decided to guard them
Two bulletproofs to tic tac toe
Threatening me to let it all go
“You’ll be back here in the morning”
But now my fury’s storming
How can they be so dense
When we all live in the present tense
They let me out on April eleven 
Like they should shake my hand
I understand
You’re thick as planks
Don’t think you deserve my thanks
For what you did to me
But my soul remains ever free
From the lasciviousness and lies
The untruths in false goodbyes
And I personify the weather
Blame the heather
For being blue
Or some kind of purple I pulled it into 
Don’t laugh
But I think I could pull a calf
With the strength inside
The activity room where I used to hide
From “the team”
Who use arrows to puncture my dream
In so many places
I breathe and the air displaces 
The water in my lungs
Why do I sense it has just begun 

I wanna FGL but I won’t reveal
What that means lest someone steal
Into my dreams at night
And set fire to my gasoline light
I wanna FGL but I gotta pay
For keeping my vulgarity at bay
I’m dropping hints and lines and beats
But I’m overcome by the deceit
I wanna FGL but I’m loyal to
Someone who put me through
Considerable stress and strain
Making love look like pain
I wanna FGL coz the stars that shine
Issue from that diamond mine
And a ring once held my gaze
Now it’s all about the people I save 

So what is on the listing deck
It’s like some horizon I wanna wreck
And I see myself on the same path again
Losing life and finding a pen
That will write my story for me
It’s dipped in ink so do not bore me
With tales of another race
Lord knows what I have to face
And I’m writing this as I’m still emerging 
From a cocoon that is verging 
On the edge of the insane
I have a dream where the rain
Fell on both of us so soft
You pay the bill, I pay the cost
For going out on a limb 
I wanna FGL coz it’s me and him