There's bleeding hearts growing over the porch. I'm in the green and white chair- the one we have the unspoken smoking occupancy rotation over. I'm smoking, naturally. Wishing I could light one with another but all that's here is the little refried nothings. The pack I never wanted you to buy tonight is in your pocket. I feed the ashes through the cracks to what's beneath. I hear music, out the door or up the stairs or through floorboards. It's not entirely audible, but I don't think I can cry anymore tonight or even be angry with you- because that music- I think it's mine. And the barrel's almost empty baby because sometimes I want to- what did you say the other day- hibernate? Yea. You said "Are you hibernating?" and I don't even think I wanted to argue. I don't even think I cared to contest with all my physical maladies, most of them very real. Because even without a drop of fluid in my lungs I would've made myself into a down and jersey burrito. But the barrel I mentioned, it's not entirely empty yet. And just like I water down juice and, more recently- ginger ale to stretch it a little further, I want to dillute what's left in the barrel a bit. Just make enough of it to get through this week because the next one's gotta be better. I love you.

xoxo
Manda

A Thousand Things (a song)

You made your mark on me in clay
so that at your convenience
my tears would wash it away-
and there were a thousand things I could do...
Thats the ugly thing about being a beautiful fool.

Take your strides on me in boots
so you could see where you'd been if you needed to
and there were a thousand things I could say
That's the heaviest thing in the weight that you bear when you stay.

Take your liberties with my in quiet
because I'm so sedated in private.
A thousand things I could not see-
thank the selective insight in me.

365 or more
A phone call between former lovers- former lesser whores.
And thank you so much darling,
one-time everything,
but go back to sleep...
I'm home and content with the best permanent part of me.

Monday Song

I wake up pale
unstuck but still
I take up residence
in this koleidescope of nails.
Raped hillsides and dip-dyed skies
make all the difference.

I put my favorite finger on play
and add it to the thousandth mental mix-tape
I've made for you today.
One more tear slides through
alabaster haze
and one more time I say..
"It's not you"
Even if it feels that way.

And I mean it with all the color left in my eyes
I love the unfrozen photographs
that I'm scared to live in someday.

It's not the one before you-
before September-
there's scarcely sand from last December
It runs much deeper than all that.

I'm holding onto
afternoons in sheets
with my cold feet on you

And I embrace
every trace of concern
that plays on your face
when I blink too hard
and face the other way.
But tomorrow is always only hours away-
so I'm okay.

I swear it's not you...
Even if it feels that way.

Back in Time

I took it down
I fold it up
but I can't find a closet
big enough

it's all give-
no take
but can you see the inside celluloid
that keeps me awake?

reels from long before
I made it back to sit-
hands clenched in my lap.
my face for your face.

And Mary Jean-
is it too late to come clean?
I concede-
you're still the second greatest solace
that I need.

I know God was there
the night that we both couldn't breathe.
Are your people where you said they'd be?
Do I look any better from where you're
seeing me?

unfinished

That city boasts a poisoned well
that serves the monks and cartoons well
and the blazing double monikers
with no lights behind them

That place is a tapestry
with breweries coaxing mercedes-bred
pedigrees
because there's no other chemical left by 1 a.m.
to guide them