Call me by my medicine
not by my mistakes
It’s all I have to offer,
it’s all that I can take
Call me by your reasons
my reason not to stay
And let me be the treason
to help you walk away
Call me by my medicine
not by my mistakes
It’s all I have to offer,
it’s all that I can take
Call me by your reasons
my reason not to stay
And let me be the treason
to help you walk away
I keep trying to focus
on the good things, except
it’s all the little bad things
that keep reminding me
of all the good things
I should be focused on.
I can only dip my pen
so deep into the well
before it comes up dry
and thirsty for more.
There’s grass and flowers blooming
in Magnolia park
And this absent minded feeling
while the sky grows dark
Lily pads and grapefruit
growing in the yard
Fences form a fortress
full of dull remorse—
You left me standing idle
like a broke down car
Listening to Layla
watching shooting stars
Visions of Johanna
all just fell apart
Romanticized by healing
and those tarot cards—
Now I’m drinking nightly
at an empty bar
They gentrified the valley
and closed the bodega
I still see you smiling
from the bedroom floor
Hailing that taxi
with a broken arm—
A tincture of illusion
pressed beneath the tongue
Awakens the compulsion
to hold a smoking gun
There’s two sides to the story
I’ve got another one
The party’s in the distance
Teen’s wet dream in the sun
Whatever I had to say
can wait until tomorrow,
with everything else
and all her parlor tricks,
scattering my brain
and blurring my focus—
people have that power over me
that no substance ever dared—
as if a bottle of whiskey
ever could compare
to the power of a woman.
I was in love with the odds of failure
so I did all I could to succeed, and did.
And didn’t.
All in the same go, all in the same stop.
I was a handful and
she had very small hands,
handing me love I
couldn’t handle and
it was no secret
we knew eachother’s secrets
quietly speaking through tears
and farewell in exchange
for another type of love—
one we both could afford.
Now all we have’s the memory.
I’ll keep the one to forget
if you keep the one to remember.
The one never to forget,
the ones kept best from afar,
and the occasional Holiday on ice.