The truth is-- it hurts to try.
Every time you fail to show
I die a little more, I die.
I'll never see you as you say you were--
but I'm sure you'll wear the memory
as glibly as you wore your proudly wasted youth.
In general, people never really want to hear the truth.
There was some poem
or prayer
that I used to know
but it made me cry
so I forgot how to say it.
Isn't it a testament to poetry
that some people say
they aren't afraid to die?
I think to myself in every lonely place
it doesn't matter where I end up--
I was here.
My red roots run deep
as the earth's molten core.
Who would trade with me, for what I have?
My blood-red lipstick for Saint Peter
to mark out his stigmata.
My cracked mirror for
The Lady of Shallot
who bathed in death.
Mascara rivers mark my cries
Juliet won't meet my eyes--
sometimes truth hurts
just as much as lies.
Sometimes I'm in pain, and I don't know why--
and I think about the time that
someone said
the universe is expanding
all the time--
and how he meant it literally
but,
all I saw was the highway in the night--
us, shooting forward, urgent
but never, ever, reaching
our final destination.
I think life hurts so much more than death.
And I have run so fast, so long, so hard
in pursuit of love
that I feel I will never be able to
catch my breath.
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