Recurring (I)

Rest in the way that you find grace

Like candles in the wind, we'll fade

Fain to light the way with our mistakes

Rest in the way that you find grace

Arrested at age fourteen, stupid drunk and out too late

I said, "I'll go," Mom said, "Wait"

Love is not the way to keep someone captive

Friendship's not a collar leashing mercy to a master

In turn of the page , in drag of a cigarette

Hum of the planes, you find grace

And what hasn't been done? And what hasn't been said?

My tongue's caught in a hesitant safety net

And in the back of my head , I hear a quartet of dread

Singing hymns to the guilt choir

In the waltz of my days

Danced through false shortcuts

The tinctures cut with lavender, I was aced

By a king that couldn't call a spade what it is

And in the deep of my sleep

The pine trees are like saw teeth

Tearing up a love letter penned from setting sun to starless night

I have that dream again

Where I can't get up and you can't get in

The flames all start to lap up at the corners of my bed

The imminent collapse, your laugh

The nightmares that our actions project

And what can't be undone and what can't be unsaid

My tongue's caught in a hesitant safety net

And in the back of my head , the truth is written in

A shorthand that I can't read yet

Was I chambermaid for shame?

Made to clean the wax off from your wane?

A sinking city set ablaze

I was bombed by thinking part of you could change

I'll never fade

The way that I felt then's still the way that I feel today

It's still the same

The same old song I sing, I'll sing it to the grave

And when I die

They'll burn my bones to ash and they'll sing Amazing Grace

And when you die

They'll bury you with all that money that you saved

And hold their noses, pouring concrete on your grave

I'm not ashamed to live and I'm not afraid to die

That song I sing will harmonize

The world of which we're born into

Is not the one that we'll leave behind

Rest in the way that you find grace

In the lucent light of morning, we sit quiet in your car

I draw your lifeline on a napkin, tell me when I've gone too far

We can't expect to change the things we're too afraid to face

If all I say is sorry and all that you can say is thanks

I never meant to hurt the one that chain-stitched both our names

My red initials swooping gracefully across your green

Pain is ever-present, that's the hand that we're all dealt

In each moment recurring, there is meaning in what's felt

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