Barely Breathing

I feel like I should tell you all in one breath
But God knows I have iron lungs
I won't try to defy the laws He set for me
I can't break all of them
I should try to think before I speak
And speak before I think
I think that's a good way not to lose
Even so I can't win all the time
Perhaps I was wrong to tell you otherwise
I will keep breathing steadily and absently
Carbon dioxide is the only product I'm making

Cara Hawkins 12-22-09

To Bed Without a Goodnight

The vague contradiction of snow on a sunny day is disheartening once the air whips through you. The shallow look of a sky that's faded wears the bereft expression of winter.

The moon's countenance doesn't change; only I can experience the cold. It deposits remnants of joy with terminal lives, deepening the need for light.

When I relapse into daydreams of carnage and dull phantasms so does the realm around me, resurrecting false ghosts for bitter reproving in time for the changing season.

I bury my old pleasures like a jealous lover and metamorphose through ever-changing denial so that I am of one mind, as if I was never arrested by the winter's bleak authority. I refute the darkness and turn to shame to perfect a false perception of reality.

Such a pursuit is not awarded by happiness. However, I am found by it when my brave thoughts come to bear.

Cara Hawkins 12-7-09

Compound Problem

Underneath my scaly skin is an egomaniac, just like you
There's a person that cannot be told otherwise
That will utter every word with diction
I wear my smile like a crown
With teeth too sharp
To allow sincerity to show through
There's a person that will say nothing of unimportance
That will wait for the precise moment to say
What will kill you where you stand
I am no one to be admired
Or granted admittance
To anyone's sympathy
I don't believe in many things
I am partial to that which is solid
Yet there you stand as hard as a stone idol
I wasn't born to kill, but there may come a day
That patience and faith do not stay my heavy hand
That will be the day I fall to my apprehended resolution

Cara Hawkins 11-13-09

Humble Pie

You know I can't stop wanting you,
but you laid it on like icing on a cake
that wasn't finished cooking
as your way of putting it on the back burner
with the promise to eat it later.
I'll make you eat all your words one day,
but now I have given up.
I will let you stumble on words you can't say to me
and imagine how good I am at licking
what's left of a taste so divine
that I all but swallowed it whole.
You don't know who I am,
and that's the way I like it.
I know what you like
and what you want,
but I only care to know those things
if they're of benefit to me,
so that when I gather enough energy
to mind fuck you,
you can't deny the explosion that came from it.
My experience with you has been like reaching
a mental climax and spinning out of control
as you drive all your force in the opposite direction.
I won't play your fool
although you expect me to want to.
I am letting you have your way,
but don't ever tell me that you want me again.
You've all but killed the dream of you and I.
You are my muse, my writ, my music.
That much you've always known.

Cara Hawkins 10-20-09

Wallflower

I sit and I fight the uncertainty that grips the ropes of self-restraint,
and I wonder what holds you back from being closer to me.
I've never told your secrets and I've never told a lie.
I have brought down the truth and buried it,
but the past is merely a ghost.
Your shy, tender soul will hear me no more.
You've locked up my words
and inhibited yourself from obtaining new ones.
I am bereaved at this knowledge.
I am cold with this blood on my hands.
I only write letters for you with hope that after I die
someone will hand them to you and you'll read them quietly.
Perhaps you'll realize something about me,
but while I'm living you'll never hear me say that you've figured me out.
I cannot know you any better,
but I'll still seek your soul.
The world is vastly unknowledgeable
and yet it contains the knowledge we seek
and the secrets we wish to forget,
like a child with powers he doesn't know he possesses.
We have soft souls that often blend in with the world, unnoticed and unmarred.
It is much easier to look at our lives as geometric shapes
rather than a build-up of blocks.
It's unfair to let yourself be so limited,
but fairness is all in a game.

Cara Hawkins 9-28-09

Grounded

You practice an act of subtlety
Because you wouldn't lead me to think
Your love is premature
Greater ones than you
Have fallen into its death grip
But my perception may be skewed
I will not be swayed
By the illusion of fortitude
Your diction is not enough
To convince me of your loyalty
Keep your hands steady
And your eyes straight in front of you
To counter your swift descent
Everyone makes their way down
To those grimy depths of doubt and disbelief
Are you strong enough
To assail your false conceptions?
Will you bring despair to its crooked knees?

Cara Hawkins 9-22-09

Life Cycle

I like the idea of you,
And I imagine you watching me when I
Uh, uh, oh...
You flit inside me like a butterfly
And make me feel sick in the head
I want to take control
And be the one to let go
I have nothing to hold on to
And you just keep getting further away
I want to make you
So take me on
I want a list of three reasons
We shouldn't take the world by storm
There is little time to sin
And even less time to be forgiven
You and I are not of this world
And music is the language we speak
The only way I can touch you
And the only way I can reach you
Is if I hit you between the eyes
There is magic in our fingers
There are stars in our eyes
I've been seeing it since I was young
But I couldn't put it to words then
Now my words are a tool and a weapon
A scythe and a weed
A flower and a seed
They grow and they die
With the ever-changing emotion I charge in them
They cannot hold me against my will
And they cannot be held responsible
For the crimes I commit with them
They are merely accomplices to a benevolent crime
Forged out of sheer boredom

Cara Hawkins 9-21-09

The Fear of Love

I'm down in my bones,
feeling their grooves and curves.
I'm touching the finite edges of my being
and feeling the distance I make as I grope.
I can only imagine the skin attached to these bones,
the color, the texture, and the scent.
I imagine my face being drawn toward the scent,
undeniable and blameless.
My eyes move across the surface like velvet
and with a lust no eye can savor.
I yearn to pluck such soft strings,
feel favor as it burns in my fingers.
I have scratched the insatiable itch
and the doubt that leaves its reminder.
I envision perfect bliss
in the serenely devoted face of my dreams.
The hand that reached for mine gave truth and I was free.
If there is no garden or other world,
I will not bear dissevered passion.
The flight that would ensue would take me
beyond majestic earthly manifestations of Heaven.
My happiness will not be true
until I have suspended this divine passion.

Cara Hawkins 9-10-09