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Your soul is understood
The braids in your hair make me think of the Bible
And the way you don’t know about them makes me
Wonder if for anything you do you’re liable
(If at any point your duty isn’t free)
The way that you walk back on top of your family
The way you take each city you’re in without care
Make me wonder if you’ve already won handily
(If all you need to do now is eat a pear)
The Glory in your cheeks at night surprises me
The way you sit down at the dinner table so free
God I don’t know why we can’t all make the plea
To get a setup like yours up in that evergreen
I don’t mind when you tell me you’re tired
Or ask me if what you’ve done is so wrong
I’ll never be the one to set you on fire
The iron you use against me is too strong
The land you’ve already conquered is not small
And the place you’ve found inside from which to breath
Is of a quality that any saint would call
Coming from up above not underneath
Nothing in your eyes tell me you question
It’s simply that I run away from all that’s good
I’m the clown that I forgot to mention
I’m the one in which your soul is understood
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2. |
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When she asked me questions
I couldn’t tell who she was speaking to
Made snacks for herself
Took her own suggestions
Spoke Spanish to masturbate
Cooked until she felt better
About her drainage system
She couldn’t even estimate
We went to the lake for her
She would lay on its throne
As the sun shied away
And the underworld stirred
Sometimes she’d ignite
Turn the whole house into a forest
Make the kitchen her artillery
And make God dim his light
She went to college for nothing
Studied studied studied for nothing
None of it made her more beautiful
Which was the only something
Could have cried many rivers
Could have made many loves
Could have shown us how to live
Could have given people shivers
With the way she was
Underneath what she wasn’t
The rose-colored Guadalupe
The soft-faced neighbor
The one who’d run every marathon
And her self had become a ruby
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3. |
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It’s a sea change
Whatever that means
When one sea is switched out for another
Like sheets
Who would do such a thing?
Sea change…
Sea change…
Where one breeze comes in
And relieves the other
Like sentinels
Like guards.
Sea change.
Sea change.
Where God sends His only Son
And we don’t listen
So He goes back home
And says
“They don’t want a sea change.”
We need a sea change
We need a new sea
This one’s shit
This one’s broken
Like a paper fence
Who makes fences out of paper?
Who doesn’t expect rain?
We don’t.
We don’t expect rain
And thus…
We need a sea change.
Where one sea comes in
And says, “My darling
You haven’t done badly.
I swear.
You haven’t done badly
I swear
I swear
I swear to you
You haven’t done badly
This was part of the plan
Now watch.
Watch.
Watch
Just watch
All you need to do is watch
Just watch.
Sometimes it’s fine to watch.
To really watch
That’s all
That’s what you’re doing
You’re watching.
It’s a very brave activity
It’s very challenging
It’s very pure
It’s very useful
And I promise
If you watch
You will have no problems
You were not meant for.”
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4. |
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There’s nothing like a city that doesn’t know how small it is. That thinks it needs to prove itself to some other city it knows not the name of. A city who is so lonely its constituents forget they are a part of anything. They wander around its streets asking their name, and the city… the city can’t respond. It has lost its ability, its right, its guilt-free right, to do anything about the predicament of its subjects. Its ashamed.
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5. |
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All the rules in the world were fine
Every road led back to hope
We all set ourselves up to hear the good news
Like an addict expects to hear from his dope
Not a soul could have expected this
Not a soul could have seen these conclusions
We were promised the goodness they had
So long as we had no intrusions
If we kept our pretty little souls asking
For what they had in their coffers
Nothing would ever come for us
We would be no more in danger than a golfer
There was nothing we had to do besides pray
For mercy for everything we were at the root of
For everything we had brought upon the world
For all our sins and stuff
So when we were brought forth on judgment day
And asked why we followed their ways
(The ones who had promised there was no one else)
It was a twist you only see in plays
We were asked why we didn’t trust the discomfort
Why we didn’t consider our own opinion
Why we should think there was one more suited
To determine God’s criterion
Not only were we not judged
But we were asked to take a more prominent position
In what we thought was their world
The ones who feared their own intutiion
The ones who ran the show
So that the show would not reveal
What was an utter lack of anything
A mentality from which there was nothing to steal
An innocence
From which
They ruled
How it got into their hands
The reigns of a team far out of their league
Makes the sin no lesser
There is no virtue in hiding as meek
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6. |
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God makes us holy in order that we sing
She makes us big so we can spread the word
Not so that I can die in my own arms
Nor dance on down to some old haunt
If my eyes were meant for lookin’ out
And my soul was meant for takin’ in
Then I ought to stay in this bus of mine
And go on every journey this road opens
Come on down to where basements stand
Where there’s no going deeper down
And wait with me till they call on us
To bring back Heaven’s last hurrah
Don’t bother with the ones who fall
Onto any sword they can manufacture
Dance around them back unto the Glory
That awaits those who refuse to walk away
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7. |
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I have nothing left to ask to be taken
I have nothing, even a smile, I want
I am obliterated in the face of my freedom
I am asking my past if he recognizes me
No one but my former glory is crying about this
How could I cry when my tears are flying out
When they too are celebrating their absence
When they’ve been waiting for this day so long
Show me where the sins are you mention
And I will point to the light that they contain
You will ask me to join you in the truth
And I will ask you where you’re going
I will ask you why the face and hands you own
Are not considered facts to rely on
Why you are convinced your words are lies
And your breath an accident
Where else will you find yourself
If not in the specifics of your existence
Who else will you come to love
If not the one clamoring inside you
Reach down and pull you from the basket
Fall upon this beach we’ve made
And ask God to let you stay
At your birthday party ‘till it’s over
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8. |
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The whole Earth sits on top itself, wondering… just wondering of another, wondering of another, wondering whether another is any different than I, the upturned Earth, the upside down Earth, the Earth. The one who knows not what to do with itself, except sit, upturned, upside down, abandoned by its former loves, wondering… wondering of the other, wondering of another while the other inside its chest beats anyway
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9. |
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I wasn’t given much of a cushion when I asked for things. They just told me to go find something that would do away with all these requests that I was the only one who had. So I would go back to my room and do things with my fingers until the room looked like something out of a cereal box. I would put everything in the right corner almost as if I were trying to tuck them away behind the wall. But I was always dissatisfied by what the room was able to do for me. I wanted it to make me feel like all the dots in my body were indeed connected. I wanted it to let me know there was order when it seemed like in every other room of the house I was torn to bits by the anger that no one could express but found it easy enough to pass along to anyone who didn’t seem as angry, lest there be some kind of imbalance in who carried the brunt of my father’s dissatisfaction…
With some thing that was more important than the family he had at home who did nothing but wait for him to do what he was supposed to do. But he just kept going to the office to lay in his shadow which he thought was more comfortable than facing the fact he was no more an adult than the children that waited for their father to show them how to do this thing it was obvious we were meant to do – share all of this, all of the flowers, that were obviously wanting to come from beneath my skin to find the flowers of others – so it was somewhat astonishing when he told us he wasn’t going to let us become anything more than the dark corner he found he could keep his eyes on, lest he lose control of the thing that he thought made him someone the rest of the world would look at with some kind of perplexed acceptance and he could go on living like he had what he knew he did not – any belief that he was not the one thing Earth could do without.
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10. |
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She was a thunder bolt
She was made of a charcoal so special
She had nothin’ but Angelic sources
She was placed here in her limitations
If only to model them
To wear them in a way
That no longer asks them to leave
If only to accept something more lowly
To illustrate further her lack of discrimination
Between circumstantial evidence of one’s
Unquestionable right
Not to be questioned
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11. |
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They want to move to New Orleans.
They want to see about New Orleans
They want to see if it will tickle her just right
They want to see if it will be the one to treat her right
Considers their plans, their plans
Drip a little after morning coffee on their plans
Stay at home, live inside their plans
Want to see if their dreams don’t have to alter their plans
New Orleans is a perfect place for her to live inside their dream –
“New Orleans is the place that has no feelings, only dreams”
Will go and get what they needs, and not notice anything
Will go and breath its air and not have to leave anything
Will go and get what they want then return to their no discomfort zone
Will extract nicely with a smile, a mine-as-you-please zone
Will go back only with a slight sense of disturbance
Looking over their shoulder, wondering if in the people's eyes was disturbance
If they had just dipped their toe into the pond of one who feels everything
A soul so great, so ancient, so honorable, if they had missed everything
If they had not just masturbated in the home of one they should call Teacher
If they had not just missed the opportunity to stop looking for a Teacher
Now back sitting in their home of thin supportive comments
A world constructed with those who also have the privilege to live on such comments
Where nothing is actually needed, only considered to be cute
A world where the best things get is, cute
A world of cuteness, lots of cuteness
With absolutely no connection to sin
With no ability to touch the floor beneath their dreams
Where everyone else is feeling their sin.
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12. |
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I’ve been a little too closed off from you
I’ve lied to myself about my love
I’ve gone on trial, run away in lieu
Of being the everything this moment points to
I’ve been half a man instead of man
I’ve been running around pretending I’m not true
I’ve been absolutely denying this land
And all the fucking freedom
So when you see me with my eyes so blue
And wonder where the hell haven’t they been
Ask me not to pretend I haven’t cried
Ask me to never go back away from you
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13. |
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I’m always getting run over by cabs
For you
I’m always getting rolled on by cabs
For you
You want me flat
You want me rolled out
You want me looking to the sky
Waiting
While you pay the tab, the cab tab
While you exit the cab
While you make up other things to do
While you call another cab
I’m all rolled out for you
Honey.
I’m all dusty and rolled out for you
Honey
I’m on the street for you
I’m getting rolled on, honey
I’m putting up with taxi cabs
Babe
I’m holding my own with the taxi cabs
Babe
When you gunna say
Breath
When you gunna let us off the hook
Babe
You know were both on it right?
You and me babe
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