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?”