Purity Ring

asido

from a black widow's reckoning
your fortuitous spine
opened up like a marionette
dance a whimsical pride
lend a hand to the silver blade
stir your gut til it pours
fill our cups with profanity
til the earth is stained orange

how my tongue dried into the dust
how my skin willed a lie
drill a hole in the field
just the size of my thighs

feel as lonely as i do

dried up seeds neath our parted seas
floating pears on the tide
slow motion to drown me
roaming streams from our eyes

how my tongue dried into the dust
how my skin willed a lie
drill a hole in the field
just the size of my thighs

feel as lonely as i do

hold the pain in a soft crux
with our palms facing up
push it thoroughly through and through
this is ours to drink up
oh the madness in weakness
doubled o'er on the plate
fill an ocean with weaponry
hurricanes of our grace

feel as lonely as i do

heartsigh

whisper whimper on i
won't forget to close your eyes for you
i'll sing before you lie down down
and push your sleep along

i'll sink below the ground find
the weeping wailing calls you echo in
i'll build a house around you
stir a moat until you drown down

i'll whisk away your heartsigh
and bury it in mine

only lonely
hidden breath beneath the floor
only only
where your tears drip from the drawers
only lonely hid the morning from the stars
only only weeping glimmers in the dark

i could hear your back cracking
o'er the sky so you could wear it
thunder whispered low so
you could bear it in

come down come now back
carry on o warily on

i'll whisk away your heartsigh
and bury it in mine

bodyache

you said, you said
turn the lights down
i wanna be alone
i read your head away
i couldn't stand how it pleaded
i needed to take

take a break take me down there
i wanna stare at the tears how they
watered your years

you sweat and you bled
i couldn't look cause your body
your body would shake
you feared a lonely death
like a lake
leaves you alone in her depths

i lied
now i'm lying awake
i cried
until my body ached

i want to know what's your quietest feeling
i saw you break i saw you unreeling

i lied
now i'm lying awake
i cried
until my body ached

push pull

you were young and you'd stare
with a reverence unimpaired
there was an echo far and faint
beneath the air remained
you were young and you'd stare
where my limbs hung far and fair
make a ladder of what folds
and climb up in me

there was no light and i swear
i could see your raring fear
i heard the plains moaning back
i saw the thunder roll o'er black
there was no light and i swear
we sat still in our fear

carve out the spaces
imparted graces and i
i couldn't shake it

i built a constellation lair
out of the moles that hovered there
a fever billowed with the wind
and i bade the sky therein
i built a constellation lair
out of the moles that hovered there
make a pardon of what knows
and climb up in me

you push and you pull and you tell yourself no
it's like when you lie down the veins grow in slow
you push and you pull
but you'd never know
i crept up in you and i
wouldn't let go

repetition

tell me that you want to move me 'round like that
i will watch your lips curve in a smooth combat
make your way in through my tears and i'll relax
if you're the truest one
i'm going to make you a season

climb up in my rattling spine and i'll contract
tell me i'm the only one and i'll move back
if you see your daydreams in me they'll not lack
what's been weighted in me
i'll make you quake with reason

watching me is like watching the fire
take your eyes from you
hope it isn't repetition
though that's the only thing
that keeps and takes you

i can feel your knees sinking into the bed
searching in my dark eyes to break what's been said
there's a wave of grace hunting your soreness down
there's a light in my skin that's been dimmed

ima dig you up and give you what i took
pull you up and tuck you in and make you look
ima smooth your shoulders down and calm what's shook
it was all forlorn
if only for a season

stranger than earth

i had a feeling you broke
and the smoke filled you up
i wasn't thinking about you
you have a mind to make sight
of the weight you pick up
i wasn't thinking about you

there is a color that shines through your skin
like the moon on the wind
when i dare bear you in
the night is full on behalf
of your evaded mask
and the rings round your eyes

we are stranger than earth
with her seasons misled
stronger than her moods
when our parts parted
she bled and bled and bled
i wasn't thinking about you

there is no lesson in magic
there were untimely dreams
where i knew
woken in a fog don't sweat it
and reckon none of it
had come from you

there was a stagger that shifted my hips
o how swiftly it shook
the dew from my lips
there was a danger that seeped from my skull
how it dripped on us all
but it wasn't your fault

and we break downstairs
with our fevers in the air
i forgot to ask how i
lonely left them there
how thick it sits
and why your eyes glare

pity seek what we might lose
but in a week might our weakness elude

begin again

i've been watching your kindness keep
a lonely company
look at the fire and think of me
i've been watching you creep
around my wandering feet
trying for years to flee

my moon o my moon
not even into
another eternity
will you stop your lovely orbiting
i had held it a world away
until my body 'gan to say

i need not one thing more
o wrap the ground around
your gentle winding mind
o guard the pounding sound
breathe in your fiery air
o wrap the ground around
give back an hungrier stare
o guard the pounding sound

you be the moon i'll be the earth
and when we burst
start over o darling
begin again

dust hymn

water spills down o'er
the glass left always full
there's a dew under the bed where
sweat and dreams hath tread
your feet would touch the floor
and drift around like boards
hang you like a lullabye

little voices left to rot and plot
the clenching of your teeth
might help you sleep
it will not lift you
you always wished you'd walk
through and o'er the salt
but it hangs you like a lullabye

dear lie still along my old web
cursed by your dust filled head

flood on the floor

she lost her voice down by the river
screaming for courage to take oceans under
she read your mind and called it a terror
misplacing her sleep to keep the world nearer

don't forget the way she pushed the water inside
wading through the spirits like a flood on the floor
don't forget

i'll miss keeping you
i hope you're sleeping too
i hope you're home

she took your face and called it her choir
knitting lace out of lashes powdered with ashes
she took your hands and told you to wonder
how you'd fit in the land if the waves held you under

i'll take you out and up and light
i'll bury you good and straight and right
if you ask in that soft voice
don't forget

seacastle

i could build a big machine
draw pictures for the walls
hang up all my fragile thoughts
displayed that you might see
a space a drop a cloth a comfort of
frailties in me

the moon is dead but she still pulls on me
baby why don't you see my sea
get inside and build your castle into me
get inside and pull on my sea

i could give you petty rhymes
of worlds that i contrive
they're in my sleep my dreams
i speak them slow so you can read
and not stand back and stare and fear
foolish devouring things

take time make slow
where have i been
why can't you see me

i could push a house o'er
throw iron on the fire
i could taste your vulnerable parts
slow so you will start
to shut out what's destructed 'round you
look at me i'm a see i'm your sea
i'll shut out what's destructed 'round you
look at me i'm a

stillness in woe

meet me in the blue bed
i'll be drawing out your flaws
and clawing at what's caused
my knees to tremble
meet me in the back shed
i'll be hanging up the knives
humming melodies that rhyme
building castles out of shovels

hang my head about
as if we never had the time
to draw it on the walls
what's all the trouble
push my mind around
as if it's warming up your hands
as if it's softer than the land
all soaked and supple

don't be afraid if it's a little bit close
i built a kingdom of your throes
i'm seeing double
don't be afraid if there's no wind in my hair
there's a stillness left in there
i'm seeing double

dry it out for days
and then i'll beckon every rain
i'll hover like refrain
o push the cloud out
meet me in the back shed
throw the wind and he'll not pause
hold up what's cast and listen close
to how my knees prey

o pry the door from it's post
i've been hiding out for days
and nothing's growing
there's a breath left in there
o i would say
wait for the storm
take it away
i'm seeing double

i built a kingdom of your throes
but it's a little bit close
there is a stillness in our woes
but it's a little bit close