I don’t know what to make of it So I just watch as I sit The canvas play across his eyes It’s just the sky in disguise And I wonder what he might see in me That makes him so inclined to be Inadequately disposed To my less travelled roads And I’m half the woman I used to be And I hate that word and I want to set it free But it’s clear I am girl no more It’s like I’ve been cracked from the roof to the floor Like the kernel of an egg It’s in the words that she said When she sought to deny The part of me she cannot buy With her recompense And there were years living in tents Getting by on the music we own Just green and half grown And if I could have known What was in front of me then I’m not sure I would want to live it again As I run to the nearest fount But the water did not amount To what I thought it would It only ever seemed to draw blood In the place that I was weak And before I get to speak They have a label slapped on my head Says reconciled to be dead And I just feel like Jesus on the cross Crying out that all is lost To a Father that does not answer He just takes his last breath and the dancer In me can’t move the way she used to Because something weighs on me and you And it is not my fault But I must say I loved the vault It was just the narcotics that did not suit me down to the ground I think I would have rather drowned Than go through the hell they rained All so that I could be mediocre again But I was born to be the best So I’ll take up my burden and fuck the rest
In the collapse of duality a new life is born And you've got a new wife and I'm forlorn Because you're making it with her And stamping on what you thought we were But I stood staunch and surrender Stonily waiting for you to remember But you never do Though there is no giving up on you Not now and not ever So I just hope for better weather Than the snowstorm left in your wake And it was the best thing I forsake Just to find the bleeding light You don't care and it's alright
I can’t abide the water as it flows through tears And I can see that it has been cried for years And I’ve been writing this story Since before you think you know me And somehow I can trace the line Back through webs that I design To hold the weight of information And all the ways I get above my station And into the cloud And is it a vice to be proud Because it’s always been my fatal flaw And in the midst of this thaw I can see broken pieces of ice That shatter like glass across my life And it makes a masterpiece of colour and hue When the light reflects off those parts of you That you don’t let anyone see And I know it’s not just me That is grappling with the cliff And a massive what if Of what could have been Does everyone have a dream And if it does not fulfil Do you lose your will To survive All I know things are better alive Coz I’ve tried dead as hell and a blank slate Is something I’ve come to hate As it steals all my flair But there’s no point lying, I want to be there As I lie in bed and wish it away All the things I cannot say And it comes to my door and then it leaves And there’s something better than what the mass believes Because there is a knowing you can touch And I love it so fucking much
I see the grey mist descend And then I know she won’t be my friend For all she sees is what she carves And she doesn’t do illusion by halves And I try to set it right But she turns back on it like it’s a fight And she must prove her point Hits me so that she can anoint Me with her favour And if I found the saviour It was freedom from all of this It felt more like true love’s first kiss And the shelter it gave was born From the place the sky was torn It was rendered from the veil And everytime without fail When I look up I see that patch The barely sewn that becomes a latch On which I can get out the gate And reside in the place that made me wait For the moment to be just so Because you can’t align until you do, you know And I don’t want to fire arrows at those I love But sometimes the truth is not above But right where you are And finding it never got me far From the deep That follows me to sleep Like a favourite bedfellow And I couldn’t be more mellow If I tried So I just fake it til I’m fried Out and singed at all the edges Someone somewhere is cutting hedges And I can’t see over them any more But I live in a subterfuge I adore Because I know your wedding bells Ring like the sound of the seven hells That encircled me that night And you cannot put right What you didn’t do wrong Let me go and sing your song
They’re supposed to be what you think they are Not mangled beauties in the star John Mayer holds over his head Like the way he sang about his bed And what he found there And it’s not that I don’t care It’s just that I feel it’s some kind of theft And I would be left bereft If I stepped out on that branch Like a woody bridge over the ranch That holds all the cattle And if love must be a battle Then I would want to fight with you All the days God gives me to And I snarl at you down the phone And you leave me all alone To face the sparse within And I know you’ve taken up with him I can see it in your eyes It’s as though something dies Everytime you look away And I know you couldn’t stay But could you give me a reason why You left me there to die
If you see me somewhere don’t say hi It was enough to stomach one goodbye And if a hello means another retreat I’d rather preempt that defeat Because I just want to keep you Watch you as you sleep too With your head next to mine Envision us together for all of time I can’t do casual, plausible rows I can’t help it, I’m not one of those Who are moderately bound I hear the sound And I’m all music when I find a note That I can pass in a class to a girl that I quote And I just want to tell her about you But you closed that door too With a slam And you want to tell me who I am And tell me off But at what cost I’ll just let sleeping dogs lie And you didn’t make me cry But I did scream into a pillow And broke like the branches of a weeping willow When they tried to straighten out my hollows and bends And make bloody murder out of my amends So I just forsake the gaff Let you have the last laugh And vacate the premises for good I’m all about the neighbourhood But I won’t stay in neat little lines you have made For me just so I can sit in the shade And never feel the warmth of the burning sun I’m not a knot so how can I be undone
I jumped in front of a speeding train Just so that I could stop the rain Falling on someone else And mental health Means nothing when you lie to knees That tell you you have some disease And I agree and nod my head But I just think of you in bed Or when Emmett comes to check the curtain And makes sure nobody is hurting From the wounds they have obtained Being somewhere well maintained And it was fun and it was cool And it was kind of like being in school But without the grades And Alan wore shades And I wanted to ask him; where’d you get your glasses But I think I must have skipped one of those classes As he messed up the meditation room, I’m not sure why But I go for a walk and I see the sky By the pink painted wall And that young girl paces the hall As the old lady talks about me and says “There’s not much wrong with her, but anyways What about the hurling” And it’s like a lotus petal unfurling And I could be bitter for the rest of my life Throw barbed wire fences at his wife But it won’t bring him back And it won’t mean jack If it didn’t then So I say a prayer, close it with an amen
I remember when you said it meant nothing to you And that hurt worse than fragmentary blue And I got up and I paved my way But there was more strength in the walking away Than you could ever know They told me to “just let you go” But love doesn’t hold on so how can it release And my only fear is that you might decease Without ever understanding The meaning I’m commanding When I look into your sea And said you were the ocean to me And I know you’re unstable and fear the collapse Of all the ideas you have traced on maps And I know you’ve found purpose and the resolute And you don’t need anyone to be proof Of the eternal in form Because something was born Sometime in December If you think I do not remember You must comply With the edict I issue to never let die The immortal bound The silence that issues from every sound And you’re mute and defiant like I steal your cheese And I’m all smiles because I’m here to please But something was ripped from the hands I enclose And no river can walk those less travelled roads Into the sunset we coincide So I just take a step back and abide In the intermediary step You telling me off was my biggest regret That I would allow the door to open just so So that the light could bend shapes on the floor Into what I could never be So I let our tryst become history And maybe it’s better in books and in the past Because, though something of it last, It was more pain than it ever was peace And you don’t own my heart so I let the beat cease That only ever hummed to the tune of you But you made it clear that you don’t want it to So I’ll find my own music, I’ll find my own sound And I still would want you around Just on terms that are safe for us both I’ll see your pair of aces and I’ll raise you a toast
The fight is almost gone out of me As I watch the battered and bruised Is this something I was born to lose And do I get to choose What I see When I look for the tv On my phone Sometimes I feel so alone Like there is a veil between me and other Between holy symphony and my brother And there was nothing I could say It was a car crash I just watched play On the screen And is every dream Born to be perforated An ode to a guy I never dated
They all called me the literary pen But she said she wouldn’t live it again And I felt flattened, raw Til I was thirty five in the great thaw And it’s an age I haven’t reached as of yet But it’s also something I cannot forget And she was it all to me Twenty years since I saw myself future hence Living with her in the past tense And it cuts like a knife To know that he and his wife Are no longer around And every breath relays the sound Of the emptiness of a chair And the person that once sat there It’s purple and maroon And there was once life in that room And saying goodbye nearly killed my soul So I just roll With the tidal waves And the people nothing saves Except the angels who come to collect The edges of the dreams I have wrecked I lay on the floor Of the bathroom I abhor Near the ward in Roscommon Hospital But there’s nothing soothing about the cross of it all Because I know what’s coming And she half raised this young ‘un And the nightmare is that it’s true And I know there’s is no keeping you Not in the way things were before Then I realised something about you, mo stór My grandmother’s prayers are still protecting me Even when it seems life is rejecting me I have another fifty years to go to reach the age of depart And I thought my whole heart Went with you when you go Didn’t realise it meant that you stay with me though Because the thump thump in my chest Still holds the strings of those I love best And the glass shatters all over the tiles And I pick them up for miles and miles Because there is a coffin across the road And I can’t escape the road That we all must take Til I collapse and wake At the wake And the person I will not forsake Not for all the money or the tea in China Is that all it will take to remind ya That love lasts forever Not a memory of a lost endeavour That sank to the bottom of the ocean And all this emotion Comes in waves Like seasons come in days Slowly, bit by bit I come to know who I’m walking with
I disappear into the silence And it is a form of violence To let no one know That I am letting go Of my tenuous connection to reality For an inoculation from this insanity Everyone clicks like Meanwhile there is a spike In the suicides in the area and I just want to scream It’s the end of somebody’s dream And maybe all they needed was a hand to hold Or someone to have told Them that they’re worth it I wish they didn’t have to hurt, it Is so unfair Because I’ve been there It was in the mists, long ago But I know I know And there’s just this pause When you realise that all is lost And all the compassion in the world Couldn’t save the girl From her fate I ate what was on my dinner plate And they drove me away Storm after storm until I couldn’t say What was winter and what was just plain cold Life’s a bitch when you’re made of gold And everyone craves your Midas touch I told the boy I love him so much But he just tells me to fuck off A few years before a common cough Could spark panic in the collective zone I think I wrecked it on the phone When I tried to pour my heart’s blood Onto a floor that was too good To ever be a non stick pan I just wanted him to know what I am Meanwhile I’m sitting in the ward with Sarah And I care, ah Now she is shaking And all staff are just baking Their cakes in the oven So I stand up to their anti loving And go over and sit with her Put my arm around what we never were And tell her it’s okay She tells me to go away But I stay And I feel it fall into the abyss And the dart shoots but it miss Her beautiful self I died so you could have someone else By your side when the times get rough Isn’t Jesus all about love And psychosis may be a diagnosis But I ghosted that doctor who was too precocious For his own wealth And he can’t categorise my mental health In a trail of ink And the man threw the sink Out of its cage And I rage As we’re baking bread I would stay just to free you from your head And you write in your diary But its a new earth and I’m firey But I won’t burn down Not while there’s still people in this town Got to get them out So I let God have my mouth To utter the Word I let it be and let it be heard
I know he’s been pulverising steel I can see it in the way he feels When he looks in my eyes As if he knows everybody dies And it’s an awareness kept from many He looks for my butterflies but there aren’t any Because they’ve all flown away At my last gasp attempt at catching what you say And you’re all money and cash So I take hot sauce and smash The windows out your car Coz you chose another star To orbit around And I always thought the sound Of my voice and truth Would bring back the wings of youth And entice you to stay But you tell me I don’t care anyway And there’s nothing I can say To convince you of the ardent heart That beats beneath the engine you start With my key If anyone asks, he didn’t choose me
I’m getting old, I see it on my face And on all the boys I love to taste There are lines round their eyes And ones I can’t disguise From my nose to my lip It’s all this fucking weight I let slip Up my skirt When I was trying to watch the way it hurt When they lashed me with a whip And the track on the player skip When I play it in the meditation room It was Marina and the Diamonds, boom A girl had left it there Then she said did you hear about Jasmine, I swear She’s some fucking bitch And I pull the switch and agree And realise it’s not just me And she said to me In incompetent tone “Are you still here?” as if I wouldn’t go home If I had the chance I just dance In that quiet place where the lights fluctuate And Steve and I had a date In that room with the number on the door I could feel his silent pulse when he wanted more Than just an adequate interaction But I’m not here to gain traction But to lift weight from the floor So all the people I adore Don’t have to bear it all alone And I don’t care what you say on the phone I can see the demons that have infected Some people here and fucking wrecked it I picked it up from that lady by the window And once I had I couldn’t drop the sin though It flew into my hair like bees And I scream and drop to my knees And roll on the floor To put out the fire I adore If it leaves her a little better off I guess I’m down to pay the cost And not go into anaphylactic shock Like every broad on the street It was Flatbush Avenue where the cascade meet My waterfall Now I’m in the room at the end of the hall And I keep a magazine Of a man I can only dream Of ever having But he’s cute to look at and imagine So I keep it cool and sweet Like the music that played on the street When I was half mad Or just too right it was too bad To contemplate So I can’t blame the man I date For all that befell Me when I ran away from hell And into the wishing well Locked into St. Pat’s like a bad smell
It’s giving blank space vibes And I was barely alive Reeling from a trauma of my own making My mental health and the forsaking Of all I knew Just to get away from you But you stayed with me, you haunt my dreams I only run on moonbeams And the doctors say they’re not there at all So I’m sitting staring at the wall In Dean Swift And the gift Of the moment was music The cocaine I’m on and I choose it Like a hit They took my phone and that’s a bitch So I steal into somebody’s cloud And post what I am all about And Aoibhín said I had a broken wing But I’m just like her and, damn, she can sing About the tormented, tortured poet’s department My only escape was the little garden Out the back where I sat with Michelle And asked her what she knew about hell And she said I would be just fine But I just feel like I’m doing time For a crime I didn’t commit And I’m bubbling so I can’t even sit And the poetry deserted me for a day or two Or maybe it was weeks, it’s hard to tell when you Measure time by a clock up high And you’re surrounded by people who want to die And it’s a tragedy, I know But could you just let me go The doctors click their pens And I know we can’t be friends Because I can’t be trusted I told him the truth and I was busted Now I just gain weight To make up for all the hate He piled into my pillow And I once was a willow Bowed to the ground weeping tears I cried and cried for years and years And she sang of something ordinary But I was somewhere kind of scary Asking the nurse if the devil was real And she freaked out so I don’t know what to feel It was an abject situation And I can’t go back and insert education Into the dial It was like the green mile I walked toward the brink I could feel my trembling hands start to sink Into the soft of the bed And I know that it’s just all in my head But then why do they fear me I can feel it when it gets near me And threatens to overwhelm The boat I float from the helm Of going to China slow And they all tell me I must let go Of the man who’s name I keep a secret But I promised him so I must keep it Delusional in my own parade Did my beauty start to fade When I left the shore Now you don’t want me anymore In meek surrender I don’t want to remember But I do And no medication erases you From my memory So there you’ll be For eternity Just you and I and infirmity
I was just picking up pieces Because everything I love deceases And I find solace in Tolle Like I used to in the holy I would pray in the pews That God would give me advance news Of anything I needed to be forewarned about Then twelve hit and the doubt Set in Because I watched Him Get crucified How could Love Itself have died A death on the cross It’s titanic and all is lost And I’m walking up the drive wheeling the bin Thinking about him And thought “what if none of it is true” I lost absolute faith in you And I would say my vows hoping it would return And it wasn’t coz I was afraid I would burn It was coz it meant that I would see The ones I love eternally Five months after my grandfather had died And the anger replaced the tears that I cried I wanted to rail against the world But I’m only a girl A screaming point of focus Shouting into the great locus Of all of creation And I gave myself to my education So that I might become learned But the axis still turned And turned and without fail I would stand out and shout into the hail But it did no good And his blood Still flows in me I just think of our history And how we were beaten and broken Like refugees and boats floating On the Mediterranean Sea Not knowing if they’ll ever be Safe again I ran from my home Til I became the One
I was living close to the ground When I heard the sound Of silence in the chaos Of summer in the snow And I let it fall Because I just do not know What to do anymore Yes, I aimless drift And I have to admit My relinquishment was a gift As it took it all from me It was out of my hands And I loved that boy Who loved heavy metal bands But he told me to get lost And to go find a soul Who could bear the tide Of the waves that roll And I do not forget him And I do not grieve I just let it go And let him believe That he has won the fight That he owns the day I could feel the abandonment In the words he say To me when he release Me from the leash And now he is studying To be somebody’s priest But he will never anoint Nor will he ever announce The dawn that broke on me When I renounce All that I am For everything I could be I just let him look And hoped that he would see And as he passed over the obvious I could not believe That I had lost my heart To one who wears his on his sleeve
There is a fighting response That just seems to arise It happens when I’m drowning In that look in his eyes And I prayed for an ocean To just submerge But we’re fighting something awful And I am on the verge of throwing it all way Into the mists of time And I lose my cool And my ability to rhyme And they trapped me in a cage For what could not be tamed Because I speak for something That simply cannot be named For it exists in silence And it is there in death And for my crime I renounce regret Because I was just a child Just a flower in its bud I look to the master To tell me what is good And he points me toward myself And something just opens I used to play the slot machines For the pink tokens That my grandmother and I Shared in leisureland But I had to let her go Because life is slipping sand Pouring out my hands And I sigh at the ease Of finding someone who understands The rocky shores of seas
I hit a bird with my car today I was crying over Shannon Airport On the radio And he flew out in front of me Black wings, orange beak And for a moment I could not speak Because I knew I could not avoid The collision with A creature free as the air One moment gone where he was there And his body was flung out from behind me In the wind and the flux of what will define me On the road to Roscommon town And I want to drown In the ocean that rises up inside Because of the beauty that has died By my hand They don’t understand But that’s okay There’s nothing I can say To bring him back Or speed up or slow down the massive attack Of guilt that hits me too Because I know that I am one with you In the infinite I fall quiet And mourn the passing Of the habit I am harnessing
The mourning seems to follow me round I hear it quench and I savour the sound And my grandmother lay on the settee And there were moments she did not recognise me And Rocky was nearby because he knew Something I could not put words into And the past comes to mind And I’m full of tears at what’s left behind And they say that that’s just life Because everybody’s wife Must someday leave this ground And the weight of hate abound As the countries bomb each other And someone cries for their brother Who is caught in the crossfire But the powers that be never seem to tire Of inflicting wrath And I can’t go back To how it was before Before I lost you, mo stór I was fourteen and the cracked glass Never thought to ask Who it was breaking But I know I am not forsaking What we are I look up at every star And see you there And the grief is sometimes more than I can bear Then the light shone And it was like the pain was gone But how can I love you if I don’t remember The loss that your departure engender And I sit beside you in the hospital bed But I know you are not in your head I can feel you floating somewhere above Looking down and blessing me, love Like you’ve done for my whole life I’m just glad no one lives twice Because I don’t think I could lose you again And in this world of men There is a female blessing That comes through the fold that is distressing To my core I don’t know if I believe in God anymore But I believe that love endure And you taught me what it means to be pure
The tragedy of being Irish and free Is now I have to watch them being ripped from me And we fought the British for so long Because they tried to stifle our song Only to realise That we were born under rainy skies And the famine and the genocide As my family dies And I stand at the grave And think of all the people the fight could not save As we all hold the weight Of some kind of inflicted hate That still lives in our bones and blood And they think they are good For daring to trying to quench the light Of the good fight For growing up on the grass so green Celtic and inbetween This world and the next And the Spanish were shipwrecked And now their bloodlines are descended We are a conglomeration that has amended The phrase níos Gaelaí ná Gaeil iad féin And there’s something I love about the rain And touching down after Arizona My God, how I wish I could phone ya After our magnificent fight The one that set the devil alight And he tries to burn me in St. Pat’s As the people put out their welcome mats To tell me to come home And that it’s okay I’m alone But I just feel the shaking of the trees And the death that’s always on the breeze When you grow up under the sky Of the memory that cannot lie
Lying awake at night and wondering if the needle is pulling through And all I can think about is you In some descent of mystery Ireland lost in her own history I stare at the stars out the window I’m still thinking of him though And I’m reminded of being seventeen Before the lightning struck the dream Of knowing your face Now you’re something I can’t replace And the fear of losing you to death Is the foundation of my regret And I know what you were thinking of I could read it in your eyes, my love And I cracked under the pressure I fell apart under the fissure That just opened up between us two I look at the pain in the eyes of you As they crumple and grimace Lines around eyes that cannot finish The sentences they begin And I will always be with him Even if it takes me to the grave The boy I thought I could save And he’s shouting down the phone at me While I lie into the line of indignity And try to hold the two pieces together But some things just can’t change the weather That blows on through And there may be few Things on this earth that can catch me by the lapel But the thought of you in hell Without me rips the heaven from my grasp And I know this thing will last For an eternity Because you’re not going anywhere without me And I can hear us cry As we scream there is no goodbye That could ever be peaceful between us I marvel at the creator that must have dreamed us
There is always the fear of tragedy Because it hit me like a ton of bricks the day you left me So unexpectedly And dejectedly I walk in my narrow boots And I grow roots And soak up the water in the ground And the nutrients from all around And then I just let it go The burden that I know More intimately than my breath It's a mixture of loss and regret As I watch in my mind The leaves that have been left behind
The sheer lack of faith she has in me I can see it in her pause that setting free The bird has never been one of her strengths The woman I know, I don’t know where she went Because she used to be a tower to me Now she just has power over me Held like a crutch that is clutched to her breast And something in her never rest As I spilled ink like truth on the desk And let my heart burn in my chest With the fire that I’ve always known And now that I’m grown I walk my own boots Though I still have roots That stretch deep into the soil And I flick the kettle to boil Because tea is my drink And it helps me to think And become all that I am I am part of nobody’s plan And just because you’ve dimmed your light Doesn’t mean I will, not without a fight As I give him permission to Be with whoever he wants to He doesn’t have to be tied to me But like the tide that I have set free I feel him beat upon my shore Worshipping the girl that he adore
My fear looms like a sullen protector And they think it’s just coz he reject her That she loses the will to live But it’s more that I cannot forgive The blatant, flagrant disregard for my soul And that’s just not the way I roll So I flip the papers in his face Say I’m done being your disgrace And run into the arms of thieves And it’s everything they believe As they lock me in a chasm perforate And they do their best to educate Me how to be appropriately fine But if I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen it a hundred time In the grey and routine learned So I took the match and I burned Everything I thought I knew And it was not over you It was so that I could be The quintessence of what it means to be free And your bullets ring in my ears But they only echo in my tears And ricochet off the valleys and hills Of my cheeks as the river spills Down the landscape you never knew I’m highlands and brand new Mountainous in my terrain And impervious to your pain As it seeks to latch and suffocate All because I wouldn’t go on that date That you thought had me like a lasso But you’re just a man and it’s nothing new To think you can reign me in So I flash you a grin And Houdini disappear I can tell when you are near But my invisibility cloak Only hides me from the unobservant folk And once you catch my trail The end will come, it cannot fail To bring the edge of the horizon To the colours you have your eyes on Flying and soaring like a bird You did not go unheard
I burn CDs to know the truth And each song reminds me of you As your image fragments and splits into two A mirror reflecting what is already gone Twenty years old and sining your song As you let me see your heart And I turn the pain into art That I can turn over again and again Like an embroidered cushion of all the men I’ve loved in the past From Paddy to the one that will last Past the bounds of death And he says that he forgets What we were And only has eyes for her And I should let him go But I don’t think he know What he means to me And if the dream would let me be I would let him see That it’s he and I eternity In the wilderness and the scrub You know it that it’s true love When unconditionality breaks the kernel of The ego you thought was All that there was to you Now I know that I’m more than I could ever do In this world of form And the image of you makes my cheeks warm And my heart do a jig But you’re working on an oil rig And every fire I think to set Only endangers what was met In the honesty I let slip through When I told you that I love you
There is a bullet in my body, some kind of shrapnel I got from the war I fought With a boy who can’t be bought Not with trinkets polished to gold Not with promises of growing old Only the truth raises his eyes And lets him see with no disguise As he looks into me Letting part of it go free As it struggles to get loose What is the point that you prove When you seek to impress Me so you can see me undress In your mind And I ask what’s left behind In the water that we find Somewhere on the shore And I visit Loch Lomond and adore The wilderness of mountains frame When the English played their games With the lives of their so called subjects But I reject Their colonial expanse That would have killed the dance Every human heart is party to And I see that freedom in you As you fight with me And you don’t know that your integrity Is my favourite thing about ya Did you think I doubt ya When you say that no means no And I love you but I let it go And trust that fate will bring us together In this sea of highland weather The Celt in my bones Won’t leave it alone And I just call you “one more time” Would it be a crime If I crossed your girlfriends line That has been drawn in the sand And I cannot love someone else’s man Though I do My soul will ever call to you Across the ocean between us I think God might dream us When we conceive of a future we own And do you lose if the game has been thrown?
Can I not speak my truth As I try to put words to my youth And the boy that blazed the sky Across the part of me that would not die Not matter how they tried To bury me with the tears they’ve cried Over ancient wounds But he walks into rooms And just changes the air Not someone else is there And I can’t knock Even though there are things that it is not Could I just be your friend And wait for things to end With her So we can reconnect with what we were And my sister warns me to stay away And my mother lets me know I would have to pay A price I can’t afford If I risk my room and board In the home I built for us Because paper wrinkled with broken trust Can’t be merged back into fine Without someone having to do hard time As I walk in the night It’s five o’ clock and, alright It’s to early to call So I bang my head off a wall And hope that it will soothe the drum That whispers to me what we will become If I just let it flow Why is it that being told to let go Makes me feel like someone’s stabbing my guts And the model in me struts Down the aisle But the lioness only smile As she bares her teeth We both stood on the street Near the monument to 1916 And sometimes I wonder if it was only ever a dream To think you loved me then Because I have watched boys become men And what they lose in the shutting down And women craving a white gown To give them worthiness points In a society that anoints Babies into a secular sphere And you know the end is near When you begin But, for once, I hope you win When you try to wash away The part of me that won’t let you stay Near the shore that I created And I never wanted to be educated And forget the truth I am I love you like Ros wants Sam And your smile breaks the scene I wish you the best of this broken dream
Is there a girl code Because I let him into my abode And now he won’t get the fuck out Even when I told him what I’m about And that I didn’t know about you When I let him do what he wanted to do As I felt the pulling thunder In the sheets I was lying under And I turned to meet his face Now all I see is the disgrace Of knowing that he was with you The whole four years I wanted to Let him be And our history Is tainted and blue And I guess it’s nothing new To say that men will connive Every minute they’re alive But I’m bitter now And jaded and somehow Only see the dark side of the grain As the sky pours with rain Down unto the glen And amen Is the end to every prayer Was he ever even there When he whispered those words to me Like a future planning history As we interlock our fingers Now I just jump at phone ringers Coz I don’t know what the news will be And tragedy Always seem to come down the line And you said that he was fine But I wonder do you know him at all Because I spent an age staring at his wall To divinate And I wouldn’t want a man of mine in that state So I offer him an olive branch or two But he snaps back that he’s with you So I let it fall into the flood And hope that the result will be good But it’s a burden And I wonder if you heard him When he cried on his own The boy I love on the golden throne
The impassible moment of us breathes I can feel it against my cheek And there were days you made my knees weak But they seem to be over and done Now that I have found the one Shining from every avenue When the colours we face are red and blue And everything is You And I wrote and wrote my little heart out It feels so good when you start out But I knew this isn’t marriage and kids It’s just the proof that I am his For now and forever more Mo ghrá, mo chroí, m’anam, mo stór
The unassailable goneness when you lose someone you love And there’s no point looking for them in the sky above Just an empty black hole, a colossal void I withdraw into myself and people think that I’m annoyed When I lash out at everyone (coz they don’t really care) Then abandon the one boy who thought to dare To breach my trenches, to traverse no man’s land I look at him with suspicion but he offers me his hand And it’s so delectably soft, so inconceivably frail That I know in that moment that my defences fail To keep out the love that is pouring through my heart You know I tried my best, I didn’t mean for it to start But it did and it does And now I say that I’m in love With a mortal form of the eternal being I keep wiping my eyes, through the crying I am seeing As he turns from my gaze into his own reverie And I contemplate the moment that God let us be Held for a second like a ball in mid air For once everything and the next not even there As life pulls us apart in the guise of what we’re freeing Now I don’t even know the landscape you are seeing Through those precious eyes and lashes to frame Though time and space expand I still feel the same As I ever did, now then and before In this world of passing things I found something I adore Something that endures as my riverbed soul Can’t separate the distance that it would take to roll And crash a wave upon a shore like I know it will be I wonder who’ll die first, will it be you or me Because we are not vampires, we don’t get a thousand years And I’ve been building up the pressure but the dam bursts with tears And you’re with another woman but that is not the reason It’s the simple fact that all things have a season As our leaves bloom and grow then turn rusty red I thought of you like a hero now I think of you in bed And all the dials turn on the sun of our day Please don’t make it hurt when you go away
Did you not notice you already buried me I say to her as she sets me free Of her bullet strung chain That she shakes around herself in vain Because I’m like the white horse that’s gotten away And there’s nothing she can say That will hold me there now And somehow I know this will be the last time her oppression Tries to elicit a confession From my lips And I always liked eclipse But the thread is always there to fray And its like what you say I already know That’s why I’m letting you go
She uses broken arrows to fire at me Then says that she sets me free But her archery is not second place And she knows how to deface A wall with her spray paint eyes And bulletproof disguise And we’ll never be what we were Because you cracked the crisp leaf beside her And stabbed me in the front (only enemies stab you in the back) Still though your love don’t mean jack Not now, not anymore And I’ll always have affection for you, mo stór But our two by two is now shattered glass Because you thought he just wanted ass And so you sought to protect Me from being a reject But in seeing me in the lowest terms I set fire to the hay and it burns Up all the crackling grass And she said that this too shall pass But she’s not the one who has to live through the story I know she’ll just ignore me If I try to press my case So I fall silent in the land gone to waste And spill it all out onto a page All my bubbling pain and held back rage When she’s in the room I don’t know, you echo the bells of doom
I walked on the eggshells of not knowing where to look Should I do this one by the book Or throw the rules out of the window I know she has her eyes on him though As I spy her through my eyeglass And we both agree that Darragh is class And maybe I shouldn’t mention his name But he’ll only see this when I’m way high and fame Has taken me to the door Of all the people I love but mo stór Let me tell you you were epic And I hope I didn’t wreck it And that somewhere in your heart You still have me on start And hit go every now and then I look up and worship as you say Amen To the starshot in my eyes I almost dropped the disguise When she asked me which guy I liked And my courage almost spiked But then I just deflect I think she knows though, I suspect And it was over ten years ago Time passes (most people don’t know) But something’s eternal, something’s ever there Like the way I know you care As we walk the dark path into the grounds Of the apartment complex and all the sounds Fall to the silence of our footsteps I cried that night into my own regret And it was one of the first few days I started writing again In the end something begin And I went chasing after Haley’s comet But someone else is already on it So I just wrote this note to say I still think of you, okay Even if it’s though the moonbeams And the dresses that are ripped at the seams Because they took their cutting scissors to them Still, I wish I could play you again
There are childhood haunts They rise up and grip And I am myself when I let the mask slip Like Keyz and I playing Freespace And all the years that went to waste Just soaking in the sun When I met the man I love I run And I don’t know why that is Because I’ve always been his And if I could only explain to her What we were I think she could understand It wasn’t like I had anything planned I just know what soul speaks And I count the years, months and weeks Since we’ve last talked Since you walked And the demons sat on the edge of my consciousness The doctor said I was “in distress” But he doesn’t know jack And I want my freedom back The freedom to feel, to wreak havoc or hell Without people telling me I’m unwell As they submerge what’s only tide And try to kill what is alive In me But I’ll always be This girl of colour and plunging dark It’s from the night where rises the spark And it visits me again and again One day it’s a bird, next it’s men And then I realise I won’t settle Thorny as a rose and stinging like a nettle But somehow singing like a kettle When you put me on boil Or is that just what it is to be a Coyle
I scream but it doesn’t bring her back And sometimes all you can think about is what you lack And I saw her at fifteen washing the dishes And I know that in spite of all of our hugs and kisses I will have to say goodbye to her And does that mean what we were Will cease to exist And I have to let the mourn Become something new that’s born Because they say to move on But there’s a space where you’re gone And nothing will ever be the same again I could fall into the men I crave and creep towards But at the end of the day its only words When what you love will surely die No matter how you try and try And insidious is the despair When you realise that they’re not there Anymore And the open door Where it was always closed coz we were sitting at the fire And I tire Of the baseless platitudes I just remember the charisma you exude And how now we stand at a cold grave For nothing can save Anyone of us from our fate Should I have went on that first date
I will, yeah also means no It’s easier if you just let it go And don’t try to understand Because woman can never be man And every one of them came from one of us And I wonder if that’s why they’re cursed As they try to get back to what they know And it’s something I don’t show But I have all the answers And I was one of the dancers In the midst of the trouble I burst that particular little bubble Of yours When I kicked in the doors On what you thought you were I know you’re with her But that doesn’t mean I won’t still speak the truth And pulverise your pretty little youth As you play the brute With me but you’re a fool Coz I can pierce your cool With a single look As you try to do it by the book And I know I’m being unreasonable, phew I just can’t look at you
My psychosis Was just more evidence I am precocious For my age It’s was at age thirty two I last turned the page And soon I’ll be turning it again Make of that what you like, Amen And I liked that boy in the band What do you call him, Matty something and underhand Is his gaze when he winks at me But I’d give it away for free If those eyes would just meet mine I try it a thousand times But I can never make it stick And the guy’s friend said he could be a dick But I don’t agree Because what he has isn’t what he is, you see And I got excommunicated from any kind of rationale And now he just wants to call me his pal As he plays home with another girl I think they have a kid, in any kind of normal world Coz he’s the same age as me (well close enough) And if you purse your lips it must be love In the aftermath Of the bloodbath That was our last encounter I asked him to denounce her And he refused Denounced me instead, the cool fucking dude Then set the dogs on me And they bit my tail til I let them go free And they took parts of me with them Are they going to come after me again If I start telling the truth And live up to the promise of my youth Prolific writer and seeing stars everywhere Looking round to catch Kenie’s stare As he is turning it full flare on me Is there something else that I can be Other than some man’s object of affection Throwing me against a wall just so he can make a selection And own me like everybody else I’m sorry that I made butter melt But I’m not your doll That’s why I didn’t answer the call
Old misery bones is shaking her chains again I look outside and it’s rain And my life is terrible and awful But while I’m taking the meds it’s still lawful To feel this way Is there something in what the people say That the door will hit you on your way out And he had enough of my smart mouth When he hit me with it Called me quick witted Then pulled the rug from under my feet Like we’re in bed and it’s a sheet And it’s disallowed to speak this way I remember what Mark used to say And how I didn’t understand But nodded along as long as it was planned And the encyclopaedia was a treasure trove of information Til people tell you you’re getting above your station But I love my mind Even if I’ve left part of it behind Embarking on this route And I like that man although he’s a flute And plays like the pied piper every day And people wonder how he got that way As if he was flung from the sky Just falling from on high And I know it was a lie When he said he was okay Like the ghost that lies in the hay Tormenting my soul As the waves roll Into the grand abyss Do you remember the years we used to kiss Anytime we wanted Now my halls are haunted And they all ring with the sound of you I left because I thought you wanted me to
The weeping starts when you realise That everyone you love dies Sooner or later So the question isn’t whether you should date her It’s do you cherish her now Coz that’s the only moment fate will allow You to be sure of He fit me like a glove But I could see sunset in his eyes And it was a thinly veiled disguise As his broken need met my solemn stare And I swore I would be there For him through thick and thin Even if I’m only working from within And the chains come to whip my skin And not in a good way like his predilection In a way that separates souls And crashes waves against the shore as they roll Knowing all of us will be shattered by life Obliterated beyond the husband and wife We sought to be And I always saw you down on one knee But I also saw you crucified And if I said I didn’t love you, well, I lied Coz I can’t bear the departure That comes with every gate you open to your heart, your Spirit And I don’t know if you can hear it But I whisper your name every night Before sleep takes me in the twilight And your brutal assault Closed the doors of my vault But they open when you’re not looking So I can watch every flight that you’re booking To foreign lands And I still remember the feel of your hands As they brushed against mine Showing me something I’ll remember for all time Even if you forget A secret handshake that unlocks me yet
I pull on the thread and watch the knot come undone Is this the place to go if you wanna get some Coz I’m just flicking on my phone And I am all alone Because it’s a sin to make two If you’re not married to the person that you Have fallen for He opens the door And watches me enter And I should have known that that old dementor Would fuck things up Because it was the first time I’d ever been in love And it seemed too good to be true And my mind is like “he’s staring back at you” And my family’s like it’s a good deal to make But every bargain is only there to break And a good relationship sounds like hell As people shake your hand and wish us well Eugh, I’d much rather our dark fantasy And the unrequited that shakes its ass at me As I pool the blood at the base of my spine In the name of what I call mine And it’s trippy and that’s for sure Did someone just call me a cute hoor For daring to step on your toes You know you love it, anything goes And if passion was a fuse to burn We’d trip the switch, why do we never learn?
Fucked up and interesting but hella blue I’ll never be what you think I am to you Coz you reach and then clutch, you crave and then claw And you care nothing for the great thaw As it pours in rivers down mountainsides There is something in me that always abides And it’s in you too but the blackened soot Means you tread ground everywhere underfoot Til everything’s flattened and everything’s grey I wonder sometimes if you were born that way Or if you grew up to do what you were told And paint others down when they tried to be bold Like you’ve done to me But forever free Is something I’ll always be In spite of your calamitous affair There’s something of real love that is there And God and the blues and diamonds that shine There’s something you take but it’ll never be mine
How does she still think she is that to me How does she not see That I took that card away from her possession After I made my confession And she screamed into the wind And told me that I sinned Metaphorically whipped me with a chain When I had the audacity to rain All over the fields I grew up on Now most of the grass is gone But the green is still there And she’s still trying to show me that she care As she clicks the clasp on the lock And tells me everything that I’m not Like colouring outside the lines I’ll always be the artist undefined Under the make up that she craves And the lies she thinks that saves A soul from the perish But if I was something that you cherish You wouldn’t batter me blue Then expect me to say that I love you
I get mad and I tell him to eff off Coz you gotta know when enough is enough Then I see his eyes spill tears And I realise he’s been crying for years and years Just trying to get to me So he’s says he forgets me Just to hear me squirm When will I ever learn That the male gender is not what we’ve been told Maybe not just a safe haven in the growing old But some kind of precious we don’t get to touch Should I tell him again how I love him so much
The beautiful pain is gone I still remember the stain that lasted for so long And it was the colour of seventeen Breaking into the reverie of my dream And I bumped into David But I think I saved it For later for too long And how every song He would ever post Had me singing along like Ghost But then I spilt the beans And he smashed the cacophony of streams Into a thousand strands of hair And now I live like I’m not there And he has a woman to keep him warm Maybe marriage and a first born I don’t know coz I let it go When she said it’s immoral so I’d be a homewrecker if I stayed And I could swear the female in me bayed Like a wolf at the moon And the bells of doom Evaporate Oh, all the things I didn’t state When I had the chance I wish he would’ve asked me to dance At battle of the bands But, anyway, it’s slipping sands In the hourglass of my life And somebody else’s wife Is something I’ll never be But it’s a moment and I’m all at sea
The riverbeds flow with the water of us And the plain is flooded with broken trust And you’re such a big man, you can tell me to fuck off Is it only I who know how much it cost You to say those words Now I’m Nelly Furtado and those birds Are looking like something I need to be And you try to embarrass me Into defeat Did you think I was falling at your feet I was only giving you a way To express what you never say By taking the lower position Then you use it as ammunition To fire at me How ‘bout I just set you free And you can go mess up someone else’s life Word on the grapevine is that he’s got a wife And I wonder if she’s the fire that burns everything And if that’s why you gave her a ring Instead of me The day calling me back was free But it’s pricey now And I don’t think you can afford it somehow
I said I love you and I swear I still do and it’s not just coz of the broken parts of you that would drive you to the ridge I thought of you on the Brooklyn bridge as the ships passed in the night and I took in every diamond light of the city spread before me I always thought you would adore me in the autumn of our days but it’s like we’ve parted ways and it was not amicably you took the best of me with you when you go now I’m listening to punk rock on my own so I can say you’re not really gone but it’s been so long since I felt connected to the tent you erected in the middle of a field when the breeze blows through and you yield to all I might contain I came down on you like a shower of rain in the aftermath now I just think of you when I take a bath in the safety of alone electronically away from my phone but you never fail to push through the needle I’ve sown into the memory of you
The great open awareness calls to me Should I let it set me free And am I beacon for the age Do you hear it when you read it on a page Coz I’ve always seen myself as a Nobel prize winner But also as some kind of sinner But I am shedding skin So I turn round and look at him And he’s just watering his plants While I chop pomegranates and eat ants And listen to Hozier through my earphones If it was the first time he didn’t feel alone Would he have a space for me If I get famous and show him infinity And we’d kiss as the ash would burn Like a Wednesday that could never learn How to do exactly what it’s told I’d look into his eyes and my cards would fold Like that couple in the painted veil Why does my courage always fail When the winter pulls in the gate And if I’m always late Why am I so obsessed with time Something that could never be mine As it pours out the window It eats everything but awareness eats him though Like death at the door When it comes to take someone you love more Than life itself And mental health Is just an excuse so I don’t have to face The lack of her in her face When her spirit has passsed Soared above all that had kept her fast Tied to a body in form And though it may not be warm He soul is cracking embers I don’t know what it is that remembers When the mind forgets It’s in the ocean and the sea begets All that reigns supreme Don’t tell a grieving person it’s just a dream
The shattering happened without me knowing And I was only growing When she put the frightened on me So Jesus turned the brightness on me As I sat in class, sweating bullets There was a dream and something pull it Down from where it lay like a veil over my eyes And suddenly the disguise Had been rendered untrue And I could see myself as you And do I forgive that “fucking bitch” Who set the dogs on me like I was a witch It was as though the demons caught flight And I was set alight In front of a room of peers And the end nears I can feel it like death on my coat Has she come to gloat Now that I am old and brought low Why does the fear of her never go Like she had bought a piece of my soul And without it I can never be whole Now in the late summer of my life I refuse to be someone’s wife And have their child Because something wild Screams at me to run Everytime someone Gets anywhere near close But somehow the ghost Of he just follows me like shadow And I see us in the meadow Are we twin flames Or just two never known names That spiral into their own crescendo And his innuendo Use to set my heart a-flutter When he’d talk about how he’d melt like butter On a summer’s day But it wasn’t that way He just gave up what we were Then blamed me for the war That ensued Are you just a cool dude That can never be touched If you are, this thing is fucked
The love that poisons me Is also the one that sets me free And I can never be the equation That you are so highly rating When you left me to the abyss And the boy I’d love to kiss Is somewhere far away And that day Is a picture in time And the reason and rhyme Of another force Is just an amplitude for divorce And they snapped the chains on me Handcuffs they said I’d be Grateful for in the future But the suture Just burns in the place they cut And he said I was in a rut When I’d left what had held me down And no longer craved the white gown And the walk down the aisle It looked more like the green mile That some criminal would do In fear of what I’d lose in you So I just breathe And accept that I need Something I can never have And the feeling bad Is just the price I pay For loving an ancestor of Christ that way
The doors opened and the light walked in And it was everything I ever thought of Him Though the dragons seemed to know where I flew So they torched the home I thought I knew But then I found you And everything cascaded into a perfect heartfelt sigh And there is no goodbye In our arching back and wonderwild I look into your eyes and the case is filed Away for later I know you date her But I forgive the storm Though I know she keeps you warm And I wish her well Though the pair of you put me through hell When you would defy The part of me that would not die In the vacuous of a desert storm If it’s the heat that keeps you warm Then why does it also burn my skin Just thinking of her with him Makes my mind go mad And he just thinks I am sad And lost in my own abyss But then I see them kiss From a fragment frozen in time That I came across down the line And like Juliet It was too early seen unknown and known too late And was it only because he was unavailable or barely so That I let the might in me go And allowed myself to creep on his terrain Now it’s all rain And I’ve exiled myself from that town Because all I see is a white gown On her, on me On repeat infinitely And I wonder do you have a child by now And if that means something somehow That we will never get to be She’s the world and I’m just me
The Poetry Book 