Obsession

It's in my head, it won't be still
It has my thoughts, this bleeding thrill
It holds me down, won't take surrender
and although I fight, it will be my ender

1 Peter 2:11

I don’t want to be a stranger in this world.
I refuse to abstain.
I want to know this world and its pleasures,
I want to feel its pain.

Composure

Give me a minute--
I need just one minute--
I just need one minute to think.
I can not answer that
with my throat squeezed shut,
so filled with tears I might sink.

I can’t let you in
with such a mess inside;
you’ll see the disaster this is.
I am not together
and I do not remember
any other way to live.

I will show my face
when I am smiling
and I’m so very well-behaved.
You will see me shining,
all happy and unconcerned,
and my eyes a little glazed.

My laugh will be light,
I’ll flutter my lashes,
And I’ll say what you want to hear.
I can be so charming,
my smile so disarming,
And there’s no one left in here.

No longer shall I...

I’m tired of giving myself
as an act of kindness,
charity, sympathy
or as an accomplice
to an act of revenge.

It always seems to end
in lovers making claims
over my body, my freedom.
So I will no longer let them steal
what I used to freely give.

And you think yourself so grand,
you hoard lovers like offerings--
but I am not your property,
nor am I a penny
on your collection plate.

Friend, Lover, Executioner

I watch her make mistake after mistake
I stand by her bad decisions, indecisions,
and Indiscretions

I watch her drown too many drinks…
Who am I to judge,
When I’ve had just as many?

And I didn’t talk her out of going home
With a man (not her husband)
Who am I to judge,
When I’d taken her just the night before

And I’ll cover for her absence
While she’s in the sea drowning
Because her last request was for a line
And not a rope

Act I

Who are you, my love,
with the stories you tell,
the acts you put on
for the lies that you sell

You tell me he hurts you,
“He rapes me,” you say
Truth or not, I know not
But it’s for more than security you stay

Your silken flesh unblemished
Perhaps bruises know where to hide
for your dark eyes hold pain
you’re to proud to confide

Still, it’s hard to believe you
after watching you work;
Selling lines to the phone
as you unfasten my skirt

“I’m just out for coffee,”
you deceive the receiver
Does he know the sound of lying,
or is he your Believer?

I won’t question your stories,
trading disbelief for fistfuls of black hair
Hold you tight while you lie
Promise, please, not to break our stare

It’s not as if I don’t understand
Why you act as you do
You just “give ‘em what they want”
And what we want is you

It’s enough just to want you,
slick skin on skin is my need
To hear you die the little death
is what satisfies my greed

No, the stories are not for me
you know I need no excuse
they’re not for him, either
they’re for your own abuse

I can be an actress, too
If that is what you need tonight
we’ll play heroine and damsel
until dawn’s first light

Who are we, my love
with the stories we tell
the act we put on
for the lies that you sell

Envy

My heart breaks
to see you so happy

I never knew I wanted you,
so maybe it’s for jealousy

that I ruin everything
around me.