I want you alive cause I know if you go you'll go for the reasons that grip at my loved ones we're trying to build houses from rotten wood and we're not living we're coping, we're stumbling and feeling is strange what's familiar is numbing and kindness always comes as a surprise cause the ways we've been hurt split us off in directions that make us go headlong, ignore intersections we look through the cracks in the bodies of friends for some kind of truth replaying our trauma as if we can't help it we've all seen the harm and we've come to expect it who's going to teach us to cultivate care and make it bloom do we fight or fly when neither's an option we're all on this island with families chosen by how we've found ways to survive it's hardly intentional, really communities flailing can't deal with our feelings we're trying to build houses from what we can find only time will tell whether we fight or fly and if you hurt me am I still your keeper isn't my abuser still one of my people i've tried but I can't keep the question at bay and it's haunting me to dream of escape is a waste of our time that's what makes so many of us want to die who'll teach us forgiveness when we're so afraid of our own insides no one's here but us whether we fight or fly you drove by my house last night I couldn't let you in I let you have my bed after our fight stayed on the couch that night and lay awake trying to decide if I was right to doubt whether or not your kindness was something I could count on you wrote a letter, tried to bring it by but I said no my friend got caught up in your game I couldn't have her in my home I cast out everyone and everything that could tie me to you except of course there was one tether I couldn't undo honey you're a beehive sweet and stinging I still remember the singing love, love, love, love love, love, love I had to tear myself away from the lakeside the days you gave me your good side love, love, love, love love, love, love you told me that you knew you still had a knife in your back you kept hurting everyone you touched you knew that much and how can I forgive you now that you've swallowed the girl I loved more than anyone and I don't want to see you I can't be near you but sometimes I wonder if you're ok or if I did you harm the good in you was only mine to borrow but we'll both wake up tomorrow that's what I want that's what I want

water runs clear water runs dry don't disappear into the tide make yourself clear draw the divide before it's too late and you're wasting your time been walking in the shadows of the ones who caught me red the ones who haunt my body and the ones who haunt my bed I keep on saying I'm sorry and I don't remember why I'm toxic now, don't touch me as the waves begin to rise and what do they mean when they tell you to heal I'm not even sure if I'm real don't want to become the shell I became don't let me forget how to say my own name say my name and you know that I love you yeah you know how I feel but I was made to be alone so you must not be real let's talk about unworthy and talk about ashamed and talk about unearthly and talk about afraid it gets so hard to hold me when I keep folding in half and shrinking til there's nothing left of me to have don't come disappear me now water runs clear water runs dry am I still here have I survived

it's a normal day we're on a blanket in the park I have to say you're looking pretty talking smart infatuation is my drug of choice the poison that I pick I want to stuff my face with your sweet self til I feel sick I feel sick your arms are warm your face is close your lips are soft and I'm ok I'm feeling fine but maybe not and it's too late I froze the moment our lips locked I'll float away just in time to feel my heart anesthetize become a rock saying nice try time to backslide might not ever get unstuck it all fades out until I'm numb and I'm numb (x3) I keep my baggage tied in slip knots packed up tight but I let girls like you come in and pick locks overnight I hate the way I talk the talk but walk the walk of shame and I should know it should know it always feels the same slipping back into old habits in some kind of stone-faced panic might just cut to TV static shhh I can only have you for a moment before I get lost or frozen maybe this is the closest we'll ever come before it all wears off and I'm numb

I want to go back to all your hometowns your hand in mine as you show me around old houses better off left for the burning but I'll cross that bridge with you if I'm allowed I want to love who you were when you lived here if I couldn't then, then at least I can now what are the chances we both ended up here we both stuck around long enough to get out and I I want to show you the room that I left behind me growing up in a big empty house I always said I would never move back here the poison had run much too deep suck out blown to the city by harsh ugly winds I got here unbalanced, uprooted, alone I'd done all my running, in one big wide circle that apple tree had me just fall right back home and I was holding out saw myself being alone for a lifetime and hope never made it to your bedroom door sealed in a vacuum how do you keep breathing you could call it witchery, staying afloat the silence just fed on me, I wasn't eating you tell me how good you got at disappearing I guess we're a snowball in hell, but I'll take it god damn, I'm so glad, I'm so glad we both didn't die cause I was holding out for you, honey

come on lazy, off the couch sitting in that sunday slouch I promise you can eat more ice cream later come on baby, brush your teeth make yourself something to eat you're such a masterful procrastinator and you can spend your afternoons getting high on the blues you can black and white this world until you're wasted at best you're sad, at worst depressed trying to make something out of your loneliness climbing up that scrap heap and you wonder why you can't sleep it's the terrible horrible story I tell myself when the jury's out, the power's down and I'm by myself the only constant, I'm my own anchor when I'm lost at sea it gets louder and louder and louder and louder it's the terrible horrible story I tell myself did you know I'm an impostor, did you look real close underneath I'm just a monster in her Sunday clothes and all these city streets won't forgive me now on this cold concrete, it's too late to turn around it's the terrible horrible story I tell myself and have I paid my debt in sadness yet will this be the death of me the punch I pack don't love me back but god damn how well it knows me when all roads lead you to alone there's nothing left to see do push and shove count as self love when you're trying not to draw blood well I froze myself so cold I couldn't feel at all burrowing into this hole just to avoid the thaw and what if and what if and what if and what if what if I feel it can you feel it now terrible horrible

watch me wash blue for you overwhelmed, but I'm wading through the bruise and swell the ache my throat's a cradle to you honeywell you sting and soothe when all is well the hurt still feels at home in you you warp my windows stoke my storms always close but never warm and I can't help but blame it on I can't help but blue and blue and blue lie in bed watch tv there's no world outside for me I just sleep I just breathe nothing's different in my dreams

learn to exit the body, a ghost through a wall but it's not long before you're not welcome back in and you hover above yourself, watching the lights turning on and off, on and off behind the windows you know people want you, they think that you're home but you don't know if you're still alive, so you don't even think about how your house might not be safe you don't know how to show up, only how to fade and now you're getting pins and needles wakening you in strange ways find the hands working the stitches are yours and you make them obey and if you want to feel the sweetness of surviving until now first you'll have to feel your weakness cause not all you've done will make you proud you keep on haunting your own house let's go for a drive we're the only light on the road as far as the eye can see alone with you in the shadows of pines I should have known not to cross the yellow line if you've already forgiven me why do I feel like I'll never be clean days, weeks, and months go by with no change can't seem to bring myself to believe it's a cool summer night you're behind the wheel but I know you're not telling me what you really feel there's a warmth, there's a whisper I choose to ignore but I've made this choice before if you accept my apology why do I still feel so sorry weeks, months, and years and I'm running in place long after you've gone away and everybody always told me that I needed thicker skin people kept on taking parts of me that weren't theirs to take never knowing where another person ends and I begin without walls, I couldn't keep myself or anyone else safe a knot I've tried to undo many times, I'm tangled in the vines and I don't know how long I'll be here don't know how to make it right I've asked for mercy, asked for patience asked for blades against my skin a bitterness, and I can feel how bad my body wants revenge and still there is something telling me if you cannot forgive you cannot move on you want to get strong, climbing hand over fist but you keep losing grip when you try to hold on compassion's a thing you know how to give but when you try to take it, it just feels wrong and still there is something telling me if you cannot forgive you cannot move on you want to untangle yourself from the tethers and have a body to call your own instead of a shell that has left you indebted to every person to whom you've done harm you want to repair the things you have broken but some of them won't answer when you call instead come the whispers telling you if you cannot forgive you cannot move on

dreamed last night I tried to hide you from the man who claimed to own you somehow he would always find you couldn't stop him wailing on you tried to shield you with my body but I'm just as soft as you are older yeah, but I've been broken too by those who claimed to love me I remember you from somewhere worlds behind me, they still find me and I was twelve years old the first time someone put his hands on me numb, confused and cold I watched him in the mirror, far away I didn't think of no, so I said yes I guess that's what I get sometimes the safest thing is to pretend you wanted it drown it out with pills and liquor being sick just made me sicker watched my body sabotage me sink or swim here in the water do you remember which way is up and I don't believe in safe spaces I don't believe safety exists I've had my mind battle my body got the tally marks to show it still I want to hold onto you bring you somewhere warm and say I see you, I believe you I can't tell you it will be ok but you're welcome in my fucked up house as long as you feel you belong I can't promise you anything but I can long for what you long for I can long for what you long for used to dream of other oceans full of fish who knew my colors thought I was just treading water but I'm closer 10 years later do you remember which way is up they tell you it gets better and it's true for me at least in some ways but I'm still afraid my friends will die I know I'll lose them someday can't tell you it's worth staying alive cause I don't know your pain but I know mine and see it in you I'll stay in this nightmare with you signaling from other oceans if you swim, I just might reach you