He’ll never be happy with minute weather 
As I watch them trudge through the heather 
Making sticks and stones of water 
Hoping for a son or daughter 
And I just stifle a laugh 
Coz it’s not good to do things by half 
And half that you despise 
And every car is a new ride 
When you’re going to the sea 
And grey history 
Reaches around your legs like vines 
And you blame me ten thousand times 
For daring to point out the truth 
That you have lost something of youth 
In all your growing up 
In the sacrifice you make for love
A freedom, a burning, a fever dream 
And now all you can do is scream 
Into the echoes of what you’ll never be
At least what you’ll never do with me 
And you feel the absence, you feel the longing 
You remember the moment of belonging 
And how it aches 
As she forsakes 
What she wants to be 
For what is growing between thee
And it’s fine and it’s normal and it’s perfectly okay 
But you both know it won’t make your day 
As you get on with what you have
And try to bury the feeling bad 
In between the plots of land 
Where everything is going grand 
And it’s green and it’s ploughable and it’s fertile soil 
But the water won’t come to the boil 
On that kind of flame 
Does she share your name 
Or is it a hidden kind of surrender 
That you can’t bear to remember 
Because it’s making you the man you always wanted to be 
As you reply monosyllabically 
And I let you go 
Because I don’t fucking know 
What you want 
And if a ghost will haunt
Then I’ll let it flail 
What you buy is not up for sale 
On this lawn 
I suddenly realise that you’re gone 

I can’t believe he gave up on himself 
Like he failed another test 
I had set out 
He had fallen into self doubt 
So severe 
That he shakes when I come near 
And point my fingers to the stars 
He gazes at them through prison bars 
And could never be free 
Hacking away at old history 
Like it’s all he’ll ever be 
And could only ever graduate 
To a dad or a husband who sits before a plate 
And eats what he’s been given 
And asks to be forgiven 
For what he’s done 
Long ago to someone 
And it wasn’t me 
It was the girl in the green dress and mystery 
And she was beautiful and free 
And I could only think that he 
Discarded her for freedom blue 
For a truth he never found in you 
And I feel my hackles rise 
Because she is divinity in disguise 
And I hung out with her crew
I kind of admired what she peered into 
And I heard her speak your name 
Before I knew the picture frame 
The face would fit into 
And I hope that you do 
Everything you did to her to someone new 
So you must face what you’ve turned into 
I try to throw a leaf 
In fragrant disbelief 
Into the sacrifice you cross 
In a game of love is lost 
And it’s X’s and O’s 
In sure and don’t you knows 
And you dispise
The photograph I place before your eyes 
Because you know it holds a still 
Of everything you never will 
Reach while you’re still clinging to your monkey mind 
Did you realise what you left behind? 

I ache in places I didn’t know exist 
Like there is a life I missed 
Hidden somewhere in the grass 
With the man that I harassed 
When he actually answered the phone 
And I tried to get him alone 
But he’s got a spouse or a girl in waiting 
And I know that she might be hating 
If she knew what I whispered then 
That his name is like an Amen 
The conclusion of every prayer
All because He is there 
And I tried to draw him silver and I tried to draw him gold 
I tried to draw him pictures of us both growing old 
But he breaks my grasp 
Throws me backwards into a bed of asps 
And says poison yourself then 
I replay it over and over again 
And I writhe and I slither like one of them 
I chime like a clock set to Big Ben 
And it’s the news 
That you should just expect that from dudes 
Who have a wife 
That you mean less in their lives 
That their hidden shame 
That won’t call a girl by their name 
But only the title repute 
And I can call you a flute 
But it doesn’t mean you can play a tune 
Like a pied piper to get me into the room 
And I know he wants to have me onside 
Hurling abuse at his bride 
While he mediates 
And compromises with fate 
So he could have on his left hand 
Someone that could understand 
All his knotted thread 
Because he feels alone when he’s in bed
And he doesn’t know why 
And there are times he wants to die 
From sheer lack of juice 
No vitality to make fruit
And embody 
A trait that scholars could study 
“Why is life so dry?”
I reach out and I try 
But with every hint of burning lust 
I realise that I cannot trust 
In all he’s come to be
He’s fallen away from history 

She talks me down like I’m on the roof 
Like only a book could ever be proof
Of what is true 
But she doesn’t see what I’m pointing to 
I ask her questions, she gestures lies 
Like the heart is always in disguise 
And never can be revealed 
Like love is something that has been sealed 
Inside a vault 
And it’s all my fault 
When the rage arises 
And there is nothing that disguises 
The moment when 
She shatters me all over again 
Like a glass lampshade breaking on the tiles 
A gift from something that she defiles 
In her anger and pursuance 
I’m startled and fluent 
In a language she cannot speak 
She only tells me that I’m weak 
When I try to put forth 
An analysis of divorce 
Between the spirit of life 
And the way you’re living in spite 
Of all that has been sent 
To you, I look and don’t know where it went 
As we watch forms on the screen 
Moving in and out of a coloured scene 
I thought this must be heaven, she knows who I am 
But three seconds later there’s another plan 
That takes her further afield 
And I know that should I yield 
She would gather me up like the wind 
And convince me that to be free is to have sinned
And I cannot buy 
That particular brand of shy 
Like I should hide my light 
In the brutality you ignite 
As you make strange
I lay down and the atoms rearrange 
Over my head 
As I wake in bed 
A heavy weight pressing down upon my skin 
And this was ten years before I met him 
And his eyes lit up 
And I knew love 
In the instant he gazed 
Into my eyes like his soul was saved 
And maybe it was 
Maybe he left because 
We had separate paths to learn 
But I know that with every twist and turn 
I’m somehow making my way through the forest 
Back to the man that keeps me honest 
And my futile tries to build a bridge 
Is walking over hacksaw ridge 
Trying to sled a sleigh 
But he tells me there’s another way 
And just takes my hand and touches my heart 
And suddenly the monumental starts 
To unfold 
I never knew that fields of gold 
Could manifest in this dimension 
And that space time is just an extension 
Of a deeper kind of whole 
I just want you to know you are my soul 

Maybe I should just get married and fuck it all 
Like you told me through the brick wall 
You talked to me from behind 
Like I was out of my mind 
And you had to use gloves to trace
The truth I couldn’t bear to face
And I’d drawn a pretty picture in years 
But I’m looking at you through the tears 
Not believing what you’re saying 
And in spite of all my praying 
You still turn the wheel 
Tell me that I shouldn’t feel 
What is real 
And if love was ever true 
Then forever is me and you 
And we age and pages hold the rage 
Of something you couldn’t stage 
As you hold up a light in a grass so green 
And tell me you’ve found another queen 
One who won’t rot and burn and fester 
The court is adjourned and the jester 
Has left the room 
And all that doom 
I took with me to the lodge 
And the bullet that I couldn’t dodge 
When you fired the gun 
Like I was the only one
Who’s heart you could pierce 
I used to be brave, I was fierce
Now I just haunt the halls 
Of incendiary free for alls 
And say I’m for the female right to be free 
But I know that if it was up to me 
I’d be with you 
But you don’t want to 
So I let it be 
Let you make shards of me 
As you cut the glass 
And rip into what you couldn’t make last 
And you may have her home, her bed, her child 
But you can’t take my wild 
And turn it into domesticity 
If that’s the role you wish with felicity 
That I may have
I’d take the chains and the feeling bad
And turn it into something new 
A world of firsts without you 
And you cannot own 
What I have grown 
And red is the colour of my true love’s heart 
But he’s not the one so we are apart 
And I keep on saying that I’m coming back 
But we both know it’s something that I lack 
In conviction 
And the eviction 
From a tenant farm 
Is not something that could have kept me from harm 
As I’m keening over a frame 
A body that held a soul I cannot name 
Now that he’s gone 
And it’s been so long 
But I don’t forget 
And the bone might set 
But there’s always some kind of tissue around the break 
Around the one I will not forsake 
Not for love nor money 
Not even for you, honey 

Watching man become a machine 
Used to further someone else’s dream 
With his finger on the trigger 
Coz this thing we have is bigger 
And he fires and the bullet renders holes 
Is this a battle for all of our souls
And I look at him and he looks away 
And I know there’s nothing I can say 
To change his mind 
And he’s already left behind 
What we’d built together 
And September weather 
Is fuelling the flames 
I’m calling him, he’s calling me names 
And we just sit in stony silence then 
Because he can’t make me do it again 
You know the innocent gaze, the eyes askance 
The way I thought we were gonna dance 
With each other til the end of time 
Now we tolerate the worst of the crime 
As it plays out on screens 
And I can hear the screams 
Of a child as she plays 
And I know there are things that he says 
To make it all alright 
Because they’ve got to fight 
To make peace certain 
Can you look into the eyes you’re hurting 
When you make war 
And you swear that you know what it’s for 
But it’s just broken beams of a timber framed house 
And someone taking the words right out of my mouth 
When they think they know what I mean 
Is this just a repeat of what’s always been 
And we swear that we won’t grow 
To be just like them but I know 
In the twenty years that have passed 
I just watch women get harassed 
And then bitter and futile and swinging punches 
Or tied up in knots and out to lunches 
With the girls 
While the world 
Burns 
And they swear it turns 
But for a solitary soul 
A singularity in a black hole 

Her version of reality 
Is fighting to get the best of me 
She grabs a hand 
Then pulls it hard so I understand 
Who the top dog is 
And it must be her fervent wish 
To stand appalled 
At all the girls she has enthralled 
With her stony stare 
I look away like I don’t care 
As she burns the bridges 
Climbing over mountainous ridges 
To get to the peak 
But everything she seems to speak 
Is tinged with regret 
As if there’s something she cannot forget 
In the mists of time 
And she wants me to pay for the crime 
She commits 
As she just sits 
Amidst all her flowers 
Revels in her budding powers 
To make hell 
As something that wishes you well 
I could never comply 
And part of me wanted to die 
So I just I sigh
Let the air out of the balloon 
She’ll suck it back in once she’s in the room 
To inflate a sense of self 
And blame it on my mental health 
Or bad strategy 
I remember the year she said to me 
“You’re being so childish” but I couldn’t explain 
So I just let it pour rain 
In her empty field 
I yield 
And let the blossoms bloom 
I toe to toed with the edge of doom 
And my books are on a shelf 
Did she steal them away by stealth 
Or was it the barricade 
That gave her something she could save 
In the melee 
Now she just talks down to me 
Instead of up 
Like it was ever a shade of love 
In the midnight moon 
I just leave when she starts to plume 
Her smoke and feathers 
And there are mountains her ski slope weathers 
In mists and time 
If you leave, I guess that’s fine 

I watch the dragons in your eyes 
As they burn you with the lies 
You try to contemplate 
Come up with a quick reason to avoid the plate 
That has been served to you 
And there’s nothing you won’t do 
Even sacrifice me at the altar of your greed 
Full of glee as I bleed 
Out on the table as they slice my skin 
I only ever wanted to love him 
But they take me apart by degrees 
But I don’t live my life on my knees
So I slash and burn 
Watch the story take another turn 
As you scream into my face
Thinking you can replace 
What is etched in stone 
As if this place could be my home 
In your slack jawed hate 
I know there’s nothing that can sate
What you’ve come to crave 
It’s like I’m a life raft you use to save
Yourself and I drown 
In the ocean of you pushing me down 
Than you say thanks 
As if you can pay off the banks 
With a lone 
But the woman that you stone 
Will come back to bite 
I know you live for thinking its alright 
And you play that note 
In your head as the thoughts you quote 
Seem to take form 
But I’ve known it since I was born 
That no diamond could ever equate 
To what I knew in that other state 
And it’s like your vines 
Come to destroy all that is mine 
You burn my things 
Then say its because the air has wings 
And wants to take flight 
But I know its more of the same shite 
But I can’t fight 
As it all piles up 
And effigy of what once was love 
In mired sin 
I’ve never known selfishness like him 

It’s not mine to hold 
This girl who’s made of fields of gold 
And I forget to shield 
I drop the armour in the yield 
And someone calls me cute 
Don’t you know I can be a brute 
I’m not what you think I am 
And I am here to destroy your plan 
As you hold it like cards to your chest 
And I’m playing the one who knows best 
But you break at the last hurdle 
I watch as your oats start to curdle 
In the bowl with the milk you’ve spilt 
And every flower is made to wilt 
He spiralled the galaxy 
Then left with the best of me 
To make stars with another 
The only thing he sees in a woman is a mother 
To him and his child 
And I left that garden for the wild 
So that I could grow 
Amid the briars and the thorns and the things I don’t know 
To become more fully real 
Not cocooned in what I feel 
As you try to tell me it’s my best trait 
So I get mad when I take the bait 
And realise all too late 
That leaving you was the best part of our fate 

You crack the glass so that the shattered pieces reflect 
A cacophony of the dream you’ve wrecked 
And you move in slows 
And something in me just knows 
That it will never change the hue 
When it comes to me and you 
As I waded in my snow shoes 
With tennis rackets beneath my blues 
And you skate on by 
The ice queen on the surface of a grand lie 
And they build statues to the greatness 
Of the effigies of your lateness 
To the party you orchestrate 
It’s all in what you do not state 
When you hold the line 
And abide by the absence of time 
In the fields of when you were young 
But you’re like a cloth and you’re overwrung 
As you fail to mop the mess 
And you think I’m making you guess 
But it’s plain sight sailing 
And if this was a test then you would be failing 
But I never give you a grade 
Like a baby in the shade 
You just avoid the sun 
Always looking after number one

There is reverberate and it sings inside me 
And I remember that time Nessa deride me 
And the flower child came to my rescue 
Now I’m listening to UNESCO
And I get the sense that I’ve been had 
As someone plays the chords of feeling bad
On a piano I don’t own 
And if you didn’t ask, well, you would never have known 
And the insidious in my defeat 
Is that I knocked them off their feet 
On their way to the sky 
Because I didn’t want them to die 
Cold and grey and all alone 
I can’t find them when I stare at my phone 
And though I look and look
It doesn’t have the appeal of a good book 
It just shadowbans the truth 
And pulverises the youth 
Until they don’t know what they’re here for 
And the summit is just something you adore 
For what it is til you reach the peak 
Then it knocks the power to speak 
Right out of you 
And everything is blue 
As the sky becomes your mind 
And you remember what you left behind 
And choose to leave it where it lies 
Everybody lives but not everybody dies 
At least not consciously, not until they do 
I took the step out and I met You 

All of the little modicums of grief
We cobble together into belief 
As we try to make something matter 
And erosion is just a product of waves that batter 
The coast of what you thought you knew 
And that was the season of me and you 
When we were young and green 
Fresh as a Kilglass dream 
In the summer as the sun sets behind the hills 
And its the silence that kills 
When everything goes dead 
And I’m just lying in my bed 
Listing to Jimmy Eat World 
Because I’m just an emo girl 
Held in the closet for so long 
God, you know I wish I was strong 
And that I could say that I’m really dark 
But it’s just that the loss made a mark 
And I can’t unsee it 
The drop just fell and I can’t unbe it 
All this open space
And life going to waste 
As I listen on a screen 
To a man who makes it mean 
Something again 
It’s like a fable and then 
It breaks into reality 
And all this noise is mere vanity 
As I stare into the mirror 
The twenty year old me, can you see her 
In her abject confusion 
In the war and in the delusion 
That just lasts for years and years 
The desperation and the tears
As cold call Susanna calls me a freak 
And hits me where my knees are weak 
Cause she knows I’ll fall to earth 
And she can find a way to make it hurt 
Real bad
Then tell me I’m just sad 
And I should take some pills 
It’s the kind of care that kills 
As they fumble in the pews 
While I sigh against all of the old news 
And the grey that is seeping from everything 
The kind of toxic that doesn’t sting 
It just quietly confuses 
Til you’re not sure which hand the monster uses 
To write the story of the sea 
I just thought the creature deserved to be 
Something more than it’s portrayed 
But you look aghast and I’m dismayed 
That you think of devilish synergy 
When you don’t know the first thing about me 

There are vestiges of the beautiful hanging like stalactites
In the cave of the rave of you talking shite 
And I walk along the line so the cops know I’m not drunk 
And someone I love tells me I’m in a funk 
And I cannot handle it and go off the rails 
Because I didn’t buy this in the sales 
It’s premium quality fabric and I made it myself 
And that girl tells me that it’s my mental health 
That has me seeing the love and the glow 
In everything God touches and don’t you know 
It’s everywhere that I look 
Did you open the book 
On the subject that I profess
Because I wrote it diligently 
And I left it for you, religiously 
And I’ve known faith, I’ve known prayers 
I’ve known heaven and the stairs 
That will take me there 
But when you stare 
I can’t return the gaze 
So don’t expect me to, just save 
It for the next chick 
I can almost see her lick 
Your cheek with her tongue 
Like she did when you were young 
And I give up 
On the thing that I called love
Coz I saw marriage and babies 
But you just treat me like I have rabies 
And am infectious as hell 
You scream it down the hall as you wish me well 
Running for your life 
Into the arms of your wife 
The one who will defend 
All the stories that you amend 
With an almost made the plot 
Like you almost forgot 
The girl you remember 
I see you next turn of the dial, December  

The demented writes in verse 
And there are lines you cannot rehearse 
As you nod when the lights go down and then back up 
And he hits the diff when I call it love 
And there arms that try to drown my spirit 
In a cacophony of “did you hear it?”
And its almost like if I ignore the plod 
I’m giving in to their broken rod 
Trying to shatter a dream 
And undermine the queen 
That sits on the throne of my home
He comes to me when he’s all alone 
As if I could absolve his sins
When I’m murdered by his whims 
As they just converge the mass
And leave me to be the last 
Past the post of what I would not do 
But for the lie caught in the throat that you 
Spread like a disease 
And I know the other plants a seed 
Somewhere the grass will grow 
And the best I can do is just not know 
Just click send on the letter
And concede life knows me better 
Than to forward your replies 
And something in me dies 
Everytime I hear your name 
I should just admit that its a shame 
That I got played 
By the tackle that I delayed 
For the sake of the line back 
Who could not withstand the attack 
That I would mount on her stunt 
I know that you can be blunt 
But forgive me my honesty to say 
You’re a blow in and I’d like to keep it that way 

The line rounded out the circle 
And he is dressed in the colour purple
As a reply to my text 
And I think he only ever wanted sex 
Not the love that I crave
I can hear it in the way he calls her babe
And it knots and it twines 
And it’s full of speeding tickets and fines 
As she tries to slow it down 
And I get bored and dress in brown 
Or nude to mute the tone 
As I hear exasperation on the phone 
And realise I’m happier alone 
And I’m just waiting for you to quit 
I’m wearing a dress and there is a slit 
Right up the side 
The last time you called me a ride 
You took back the engine 
And now whenever you mention 
Me it is in deferent sighs 
And I laugh straight into one of your goodbyes
As you bridge the gap 
The fall that hits you like a slap 
On the cheek, in the face
And you hide behind your mother 
So I’m gonna find another 
Who’ll be man enough for me 
I don’t care about your degree
I’m in love with the music 
And the parts of you that didn’t choose it 
Are left shady by the beach 
On the edge of the pavement that greys your speech 
As you try to concrete the meaning 
But it just sounds demeaning 
And not in the good kind of way 
It’s the lie in what you cannot help but say 

Is it just entertainment, all this playing with words
Like flying is to one of the birds 
And they’re all dressing up in pretty gowns
I arrange myself in verbs and nouns 
And adjectives seem to seep from my wounds
I wish I could command one of those rooms 
Like she does
As she flails into the arms of love
And it catches her again and again 
Is it only the men 
Who keep her bed warm at night 
Or is it the fire that we ignite 
As we sip wine by the sill 
And I sigh and roll my eyes at the way she will 
Deftly avoid the truth
As she takes refuge in her youth 
But it’s almost spent 
Doesn’t mean that the purity went
And would you pay any money to be an actress
And you can rely on my exactness
As I underline the point I try to prove 
But I’m just the pen something else will use 
To delineate a design 
And he is hers and she is mine 
Until I let her go 
And I would but then you’d know 
Exactly what you’re dealing with 
You bite the tongue that wants to call me a bitch 
As we’re trading barbs 
Like the fence that lines our yard 
And keeps the animals in tow 
But if I hadn’t nailed it then you wouldn’t know 
Where it is you’re going next 
I gotta ask “did you suspect?”