You must never be frightened love, no never
The sun beams there at the corner of your mouth
Darkness rolls back in a wave where you point
It washes in
It washes in
But every time you send it back

You believed that only to see me was to know me
That in the crook of my neck, somewhere at the corner of my mouth
Was the doorknob, was the threshold
Was an easy answer
A smile worn so many times it was a second skin
I see what you think behind your tired eyes
That maybe I could have been a sweet salvation
That maybe I could be the reprieve that fell just before the gun rose
A hallelujah that tore from your throat in the final hour
But I am my own
No more a lifeboat, no more an innocence you lost
Than I am a make-believe
A pretend girl
Who speaks the gentlest word
Who bears all things with soft soft patience
I have razor blade corners
I have dark molten pools
And bent at the waist willow arms
I know you
And your empty easy jokes and your honeysuckle nothings
Your pleas for attention
I hear what you say behind what you're saying
And I answer back lilting and false naive
I can play the game you invented
Where I am only a ghost
Only a light in the dark
Only the little stranger you once told yourself you knew

Ah little stubborn-headed starsnatcher
Drinker from the deep
I see you
A bluebird in a glass house
A lark in a crystal cage
You might have been a watercolor painting
Bleeding colour
If I could get you to sit still for it
If I could get you to sit still for anything at all
But your legs are too long
You're always running
You're laughing over one shoulder
And crying into the other
Breathing hard the fern-swathed path
Pressing your hands into the sky