In your hand was the green and it felt like the dream that you wanted for me. You were muscular yes so I gave you my best still your hand held the key.
And I pleaded, because I want to feel needed to be broken and bleeded by something so bright. Like you found me, your arms wrapped around me the sun shining down me, I’m covered in light.
And you eyes like the sky spinning blue round the mind that you opened for me. Warming up to your smile gazing back for a while still your hand held the key.
And you taught me to learn how to cower to be overpowered by something so bright. I conceded because I want to feel needed to be broken and bleeded and covered in light.
With your hands on my arms, have I been here before? With your hand in my mouth and a light through the door? There’s no need to scream, there’s no need to escape he is pushing me through space.
Though the asphalt was cracked still I leapt like a dragonfly smiling inside. You gave me butterfly wings all the beautiful things that you grow when you hide.
Like a flower, to be overpowered to learn how to cower and crush in the night. In the doorway, your shadow before me until there’s no more me, I’m covered in light.
A song from a dream I had in which there were two hills- one that was really steep and I thought, well MAYBE I can climb that, but on top of that there was yet another hill that was practically straight up and down, and I knew climbing it would be impossible. But it looked so beautiful.
Me, in my favorite activity, going for a car ride. Unfortunately, I don’t have a license, so car rides are a luxury. If I did have one, I would drive all day long. All my dreams include a segment where I am driving without a license & start to panic that the cops will pull me over.
I don’t like microbes; please don’t touch my arm with your fingernails I’ve already thrown up in my own mouth three times today I twist and spin, still the world presses in like a gauzy veil Covers my eyes, lies, fuzzy, and white Voices smile, laugh, holding me tight to the ground I’ll survive Let me be- I’m not going outside Where the butterflies fly too far away to be seen Over the green.
I don’t like good people, they don’t feel what they say feel They’ll never give up their candy for children to eat They flit and shine as the world crumbles down to obey their will Buries me down, brown under their feet Hear me beg, cry, I know defeat- it’s alright I’ll survive Let me be- I’m not going outside Where the butterflies fly too far away to be seen Over the green.
Stick to the underside, shrug it off for the final time Spit out the silk line and follow it home.
I don’t like feeling that your brain is in this same building I’ll blank my my mind as I stare at a big empty screen A bag of chips and a diet coke; that’s all I need now You can poke, prod, urge me to live You can stare, scratch tell that that I must forgive I’ll survive Let me be, I’m not going alive
I will fight, bite, leave me alone Here to die, fly, I’m going home- it’s alright I’ll survive In a way, I’m already outside Where the butterflies fly too far away to be seen Over the green.
I wrote this song while living in Nashville, where- just as in L.A.– it was a great struggle to go out and perform every night while living in the grips of extreme shyness and stage fright.
In my Nashville apartment I had two bathrooms, so one of my anti-shyness therapies involved filling one bathtub with scalding hot water and one bathtub with ice cold water and then running back and forth between the two to submerge myself. It was not fun, but as usual I was hoping that causing myself physical pain would make performing less painful by comparison.
The one “therapy” that actually worked- at least in the short term- was putting sage oil on a handkerchief and breathing through it while driving to the venue. By the time I had reached my destination, inhibitions seemed to have magically vanished, and I could walk onto the stage with only a healthy handful of butterflies..But then I read that sage oil is toxic, and that was the end of that.
