"Everything is The Same" by Colour Revolt

Everything is just the same,
Wrench it out from her landscapes.
For all we know, it's just a game.
If love is blind, where is your illness?
For all we know, we're all ashamed,
And inside each is a weakness.
For darkness doesn't know the game;
Darkness knows I have a weakness.

All my friends, they catch me when I'm gone.
And I keep acting so stupid, just sucking on my thumb.
If you keep playing, so count it, I won't know when anything changes.
If you keep saying we're useless, well we'll just fulfill your game.

Everything is just the same,
Kill the lights and be silent.
For all we know it's just a stain.
If love is blind, where is your harness?
For all we know it's just a game.
If love is seen, where is your illness?

All my friends, they ignore me when I'm wrong.
And I don't know why I can't say why I just feel that way sometimes.
And if you know that you can say that I have no problem being shunned.
Most of the times we are wrong and we think we are the righteous ones.

  They loved in thermal and frumpy sweaters.
  When the cold came against their cheeks,
  He'd lay his head on her lap and hum
  Amos Lee's "In the Arms of a Woman."

  She was a little woman-

  Such a little woman.

  "Now, most days I've spent like a child,
   Who's afraid of ghosts in the night.
   I know there ain't nothing out there-
   I'm still, afraid to turn on the light."

Conversations

 "I have had long loves. They weren't always what was best for me, but they were exuberant and passionate. I have this theory that we long so terribly to fall in love during this time of year because we have become so incredibly jaded and disenchanted. Holidays don't feel the same anymore. They are full of receipt tape, arguing, and panic over the increasing number on the scale. Snow isn't magical anymore. 

   Falling in love feels like everything we're missing. It's that high that we can bend into a fairytale for a little while. It's that little bit of magic. When we're little, we believe no one will ever leave us. When we're older, it's magical if they stay."

                      -An Autumn

   This isn't my life. My life was supposed to be exponentially larger than this. There is a sad street that I know of. It used to be miraculous. The pavement is begging for revival. I am all the lonely footsteps.  All the dampness aches for horizons...all the ones I took for granted. And my dream is hers, and my dream is hers, and my dream is the next person's. I am quite small. And in the scheme of things, just flesh; just bones. I will not leave behind any sort of legacy. I will leave behind hat boxes, and marked up Bibles. I don't know if I'll have moved out West yet. I don't know if I'll have found love. I pray all the pretty prayers. I practice list-making. And I tumble on alone...like a rambling song.

A Writer

   I yearn for this to be more than melancholy.
   Days have been stripped off my life--weary days, in grey sweaters, and dreary hats.
   I have lived and lived and I have hid from living. I have loved. I have loved so much.
   I once knew a writer and he loved me. And we had a precious love. We had a real love.
  And it was good.
  And then, it wasn't good anymore. And when it stopped being good, I stopped being good.
And when I stopped being good,
All the inky days bled together,
Until they became a gaping void
That soaked us up
Until we no longer existed.
  I have lost the love of my life.
  I have lost the love of my life.
  I have lost. The Love. The only love. Of my life.
They don't make pills for that. They don't make pills for someone being the love of your life, but you not being theirs.
  His story would be different. I am just another face. I am a watercolor blur. I am faint.
  He wasn't.

  He my monument.
  He was my solid step.

  He was the moment of my life that was so succulent, it caused everything else to become mundane.
  I used to love a writer. He had real roots, and everything.
  I lost all my self respect. I placed my light in the hands of a dark humanity. I didn't come out as gold,   but I did come out as a woman. I am still trying to understand why they said this would be better. I am flesh, and breath and tears. I am a series of imperfect things.
  I am the silent gray stillness of porch-swing days,
  When there is only cold concrete,
  And nothing to say.

  My life is rather small, but I strive to add volume to the days. I color in the hours by their number. I weave strands that shimmer into the trees, as if the branches have their own ribbon dancers. I hammer sea foam nails into the glistening planks of all my purple houses. Sometimes my lips are pink; sometimes they are mango. Some might consider me magical.
 I am the feather leaves that cloak themselves in leather. Some days, I am a walking poem. Other days, I am a walking question. I consider the moments, no matter how small, and I collect them in tiny baskets.
   When I die, I will be guilty of leaving behind an embellishment. I will die--not ignorant of how small that I truly am--but still unwilling to accept it. I've convinced myself there has to be some badge of honor in that. I have convinced myself...that is a rather large feat.

"Flight"

"Parked, at last, 

On a dime that would never last,

I ran through the airport. 

Wild for love, I ran through the airport,

Stockings and skirts and dollars..."

In "Flight," Anne Sexton writes of the Boston Logan International Airport. 

For the sake of a cold, northern, corpse love-

 She dashes through the terminal in a futile attempt to

Change his mind. 

Sexton chases a dream that was never there;

It is arguable to say

Her "love" never existed at all. 

I live my life in a cold, Boston terminal. 

I am stockings. I am skirts. I am dollars. 

I am foam rollers, I am rouge lipstick, I am the shell of a woman

Who once had dignity. 

I live my life, longing for the melancholy 

Of a cold northern winter

Just to feel close

To...

Wading in glue. 

Outside an airport...

Knocking my dizzy head on street lamps

With nowhere else to go. 

This is What I Want:

Daydreamer:
Sitting on the sea-
Soaking up the sun;
He is a real lover
Of making up the past,
And feeling up his girl
Like he's never felt her figure before.

A jaw dropper,
Looks good when he walks,
He's the subject of their talk-
He would be hard to chase,
But good to catch,
And he could change the world
With his hands behind his back.

You can find him
Sitting on your doorstep,
Waiting for the surprise.
And he will feel like
He's been there for hours,
And you can tell that he'll be there for life.

Daydreamer,
With eyes that make you melt,
He lends his coat for shelter,
Plus he's there for you
When he shouldn't be.
But he stays all the same,
Waits for you,
Then sees you through.

There's no way I could describe him;
What I've said is just what I'm hoping for.

[But I will find him,
Sitting on my doorstep;
Waiting for the surprise--
And it will feel like
He's been there for hours.
And I can tell that he'll be there for life.]

"We get into trouble with statements such as 'Seeing is believing.' Rarely, are things as they seem. Seeing is not believing. Seeing is exactly that--just seeing. We have to be careful about what we believe based on what we see." Jonathan Rogers

       I live in a Shakespearean play. 

Perhaps that's why I hate Billy so much. 

I am at war

Between my own Othello

And Iago. 

And I'm Iago

All the time. 

  They are building a fence around the "back yard" of the MIR house. The vacant porch is proof that everything changes. I used to curl up there, on the couch on spring days. I would rest, and I would wait. I think some part of me still is there...waiting.

Letters to a Wound

 
   Paddox,
 
    I'll pretend I don't know you're slicing up your wrists again. I'll turn my cheek while you're under the tracks, injecting addiction into your veins. Lie about the monument with me, and we'll be fine.
    Let's continue in strife--"building up"--while we're drowning in the quick. I'll confide in you about my deepest fears, while you'll exploit me-like I'm sick.
   I'll purse my lips and place them on your cheek. You'll force glass into the sides of me. I will nurse you like a house of broken bones; I will declare you "home."
   You'll chip away at my self-worth, until I'm left with none.
   I will expect more out of you than you are capable of giving. To me, you'll be a demi-god. I will make it impossible for you to fail me. And when you do? I'll make sure I criticize you until you weep.
    I will constantly put you on a pedestal; you'll be cast in pretty lighting.
    I will drown you in all of my thoughts and emotions. You'll pretend to care; you'll give me terrible advice-in hopes that I will take it and destroy my life.
   I will flood you with information about my weaknesses. And when you abandon me? I will make sure you have enough ammunition to make me transparent.
  I will sew you up with needles and thread when you come back with insincere apologies. I will ice your bruises, I will kiss your head. I'll even sacrifice our bed. You can sleep in it. I'll take the floor. That is something a friend would do.
  You'll trash my music. Then you'll steal all of it, and sell it for drugs. When you're not selling it for drugs, you'll sell it for food money.
  When you are gone for days on end, I'll cover for you. I'll lie--because that is what a good friend does. I will wash your bras, and your "Thursday" panties. I will bleach your Wonder Woman p.j.s that are stained with my leftovers. I'll pretend I don't know that it is you that has been stealing my food.
 You will lie to my face; I will let you.
 When you hook up with my ex-boyfriend, I will drown myself in Pepto Bismol to soothe the knots in my stomach. I will start using medicated face wash to shrink the knots in my face. I will always act excited when you come back around, and we'll take road trips together. Our pictures will always be perfectly edited. And we will always be beautiful.

 

   Along a speckled and crystalline Richland Avenue, I feel the softer spaces of my skin sinking into the ridged holes of a worn-in street bed. I observe the bell tower-clamoring high, proclaiming its promises in the clear throat of a crisp, October sky. There are canopies here, of amber and of rouge, of umber and of emerald. Light peaks through their negative spaces; it explores and observes the crevices and veins of shed foliage.

The stark trees already dread the winter-
Where they,
Like bare children,
Will wait in anticipation

For their May headdresses-
With only whistling winter songs to sing,
And nowhere else to go.