it could be true
from a story or a song
that no free man was ever free
til he had the strength of his belief
and knew the sound of his own voice
against the wind and raging storms
to the ear of his lover
in silence his truth still spoken
that is a free man

there is a playlist in my heart
i've been writing since the day we met
for the first time again since we knew
each other at misconception

Coming Down

I come down a lot
I turn on the lights
Making promises of peace tonight
I shut the door
Quick I tell my lies
Before I bend my knees
Oh I refuse to give or take an inch
And I won’t bend or break
Oh I come down a lot

I shut the door to keep you out
I lean myself against this wall
Do anything to keep the weight of the world
From falling down, from falling down
Around me

I am terrified of falling
I feel myself burning
I am buried with confession
I can’t get the words out
And I’ll fall apart if it all comes down
And I am scared to be broken
But you can take the fear apart
And you can break me

I am swallowed up by pride
I live inside myself
Telling lies and it’s so cold
I won’t bend or break
I won’t give or take an inch

And all these promises I break
They take my strength
I am slowly dying
I die a little every day
Oh I come down a lot

I am terrified of falling
I feel myself burning
I am buried with confession
I can’t get the words out
And I’ll fall apart if it all comes down
And I am scared to be broken
But you can take the fear apart
And you can break me

not the girl you think i am
i keep myself afloat
by holding on to moonlight
i break, i'm regularly held together
with pieces of string
formed from the words you say

what of my strength is not a farce
naught of my life is without darkness
i am not the girl you think i am
i need you like i need the air
i breathe and gasp when you are there
for i am always needing you near

what has god done with his cruel fates
to let the light fall on my empty spaces
my frailty slips into my hope of your hands
to know you live in this space but you do not take
i'm not the girl you think i am
in these days i am the needy and poor
the illiterate, the follower, the something more

you are a tattoo under my skin
a word and a line from a song
i'm still trying to write
but you are the rhythm
you are in my heart tonight

your skin on my skin
is a memory, the future of everything
your skin on my skin

your words in my ear
your love in my hands
your touch is my life
you are in my heart tonight

your skin on my skin
the future of everything
the tattoo under my skin
you are in my heart tonight

the spirit draws near
when we are close
as we are closer and closer

over and over and over
over and over and over
you are in my heart tonight
you are in my heart tonight

oh today why couldn't you be
a little more like the coffee guy
for he is sweet and kind
and always looks me in the eye
notices the little things and
how i like my drinks, the time of the day
and where the lie of the land is
he knows with just three words
and i would like to taste his lips
but there is no heart on the line
with that one, not like with you

for you look me in the eye and straight away
you know more than i decided to give away
i'm a dead giveaway
you know how i like my things, my drinks, my funny ways
you fight me anyway on the ones you take your pride in
i have no pride around you anyway

oh just for today
if there were no consequences and no regrets
i would take your lips and claim them as my own
even for a day in summer sun have a dream of you again

there are twelve little pieces of my heart
each wrapped up in parcels of history
two blue eyes, one from my granddaddy
the other from my father
two hazel black rings around my iris
from my mothers deep strong heart
i have the colour of her freckles
the shape of her hands for making things
the way of her feet from walking
in the name of my grandmother
over long distances all in the sake of grace

i have the voice of my family name
in the absence of a father i wear it loud
redeeming something better, stronger, clearer
we landed on a western shore all of us strangers
scattered together by a skim of fate and chance
mothers and fathers all, brothers and sisters
from the northern lands with misfits acquired among us
black and brown and irish hues
my english blood a tinge of blue

i am pieces of history, northern sands and mills and things
small towns built on distant dreams and long ago tales of america
the distant shores of australia and all the darklands in between
i am pieces of history, riverside miner families
dark ginger hair and a whispered prayer for far off better days somewhere
the south and western coast a rugged, barren heartland start

there is a bloodline under my skin
that makes some sense of the mess of me
a line of trouble and a spring of hope
and under blue eyes something starts..

won't you walk with me
up the hill then down to the bay
one thousand steps and we will be ok
i spend my dollars and time all in the sake
of loving you, you are the love in my life
the shadows of the sun glancing on my cheeks
oh that you could take the hand offered to you
in the moment i could've loved you so well
and still stolen nothing from you

walk with me one thousand steps and a day
under sun and rain

the conspiracy of scarlet thread
around your finger, the caress
of silk and other woven things
like a dream or a hope, sewn here

in a hem or a seam, holding together
i am cancelling our affairs
i've lost my tongue under the spell
of your hand on the back of my neck
this will not stand, i cannot stand
knees shake, heart quakes
the spirit and the flesh all unwilling
to hold to higher things
so forget my name, i'm leaving our affair undone
already my future full of regretting
words not spoken
your name, kiss, lips, touch, love
spoken from each limb, my scarlet thread
and all i'll ever have of you

play me a minor chord, i have a sad song in my heart
and there is not a thing that you can do to ease the tide
there are no notes that match the dissonance of sorrow
the beauty of the darkness falling, the sad little tune

play me a minor chord, follow it with thirds and then a 7th
by the time the dawn arrives, we'll be through me and you
me to go my own way with this sad new song and you, to where you go
down to the dark, lonely depths that i cannot, will not go

i have a sad song in my heart
i have bought you sunshine
tattooed wisdom on my shoulders
til i've been going backwards
but we'll be through, me and you

enjoy these final notes, this last reprise another chorus line
i'll write you one last soaring melody with notes of gray
shading blue along the wake, stay up all night to finish off the ache
wine bottle emptied alongside the minor chords we'll write tonight

we're so much better in the melancholy a sad retreat wasn't fooling anybody
for i am magnet to the foolhardy, fools and i am the biggest fool of all
there is a foolish colour to all these minor chords and fooling words
nobody gets fooled anymore, the melody of my love is a breaking curse

could i be sent, sent out into the night, by the dawn a parcel of light

play me a minor chord, i have a sad song in my heart
and there is not a thing that you can do to ease the tide
there are no notes that match the dissonance of sorrow
the beauty of the darkness falling, the sad little tune

in the light
at the close of the day
there is the darkness falling
and the starlight rising in your eyes, i
know the way to your heart
know the beat of your soul
know the rhythm, i know the way to your heart

in the grace
at the end of it all
love like the light is rising
and the moonlight falling on your skin, i
know the way to your heart
know the beat of your soul
know the rhythm, i know the way to your heart

and i won't
hold you like i want to
touch you like i need to
i will hold back desire, for
in this land that is plenty
it does good to have less
and if i want you this much
surely i should learn control

you, got me like the stars
hanging on the moon, every word, every thought
is you, calmly putting back together the world
after we shattered it with all our foolish schemes
and hope, is rising like the light surer than my fight
our fight, the fight to live and then die
closer than brothers, so i could take you as my lover
and if i want you this much
surely i should learn control

in the river of stones
the water pools up and soon
the world slides to her knees
the trembling fire

there is a light on the iris
a wire to the moon
your hand fits my breast
skims the curve of my hips
i make a wife of my art

shivering down to the knees again
rocking to ground with the beat of it
i am the love of the life
that has fire and heat

in the river of stones
the blackbird sings a little song
blood beats, sings along
strip down to the marrow
life comes in the marrow of the pain
the rush, the crush, the water
running over, boiling up from under-
neath the weaving stones, a tapestry
of earth, broken fiery heat
coming down to her knees
i make a wife of my art
i am the love of a life

Respiré con su respiración y le amé

i died in the death of your presence
when light ceased falling
in the amber of cloaked sin
the flickering break on beaten shore
with every despairing and failing part
each stricken, wounded, drowning quarter of my heart
i died in your arms while we were walking

you spilt over into multiple hearts in
one aching moment but i died in moment of knowing
how much of a ghost a man becomes in the dark
so your life goes on in the womb of empty
and mine carries on to a distant shore
while darkness falls here on my wife
my bride of long, white cloud and rain
you becoming another ghost, again
i die on your exhaling breath

you spent all your sweat, skin and love
spilled it on rocky soil with salty air
you ran like silt in the river
still i'm the ocean and the sailboat on the ocean
the lakes and the rain, the endless water
the quenching thunder am I, setting sail
water like the oboe and the flute calling out
the summer songs, the haze and sweet notes of
warm light falling up, springing back to life
from the breath on which I died, and i loved you.

sometimes in the sunshine
under the spring light
when all things seem hopeful
and your skin is warm against mine
i wish my heart didn't beat so fast
nor time spin by so quickly
for fear i am wasting my portion of you

oh i'm held out on a line
a tripping wire between the breaking and the shame
i can hear the guns firing me down to the ground
the grace of your breath over me

sorrow like a knife under my jaw
the fleeting darkened rage of my possession
the battle flaring over and around me war-like to claim
some piece of dirt and earth under my feet

running through my blood is your
heat and the shimmer of eyes in floods, desire
in the strength and beat of days and nights your rhythm
you're the perfect storm, under and over my skin

caught between the tension of hope and despair
the crush of tempest in touch and trauma, bullets grazing
spirit aflame in the night, in the dawn, in the light
the burning spirit speaks my name, Life i crave

oh, i'm held out on the line
a tripping wire between the breathing and the kiss
the storm like rain on my skin and the dance beginning
guns firing basslines in your words on me

you, in
heat, touch,
life, spark,
spirit, love,
dance, storm,
tempest, dark,
rhythm, light,
breath, grace,
burning, kiss
over me.

the edges of my life were worn out
the pieces threaded bare and worn through
you came with a magic thread
i thought you were stitching up my wounds
still you were tying me up in knots
the kind that take the longest time
to come undone

and when i thought you were fixing the ache
stopping the bleeding, pressing yourself into the break

you were never saving me, only yourself
you were never for me, only taking my heart
my strong heart til i was nearly worn out

i was all frayed and falling apart
i was closed up and freaking out
you came with a magic thread
you wove in and out of my life
threaded me across the edges
your knot takes the longest time to undo

you were never saving me, only yourself
you were never for me, only taking my heart
my strong heart til i was nearly worn out
my deep wounds til i was wrung out
myself stitched up and in knots so hard to undo
myself unravelling from you
you stitched me up in a evil way
you were never saving me, only yourself
you were never for me, only taking my heart
i thought you were stitching up my wounds
i thought you were healing all my wounds
i thought you were pressed into my heart
but you were

threading the line around the edges
roping the heart into a noose
i could only hang myself or bleeding
realise the only truth is off and weeping

you were never saving me, only yourself
you were never for me, only taking my heart
i thought you were stitching up my wounds
i thought you were healing all my wounds
i thought you were pressed into my heart
but you were

tying a knot that takes the longest time to undo

if all else fails
let's go back to the part
where we couldn't get lost if we tried
under my skin was the map to the home of your heart
all your words lived under mine

if all else fails
i've got a picture of you
breathing from before the start of it

i'm all springtime and summer'd up
living on sunshine and moonlight grass
haze and fog the beginning and end of days
i'm living out of suitcases and little dresses

emboldened by the distance i think of you
with easy-going laughter at the things you'd say
i'm lonely for the touch and hope of you
the giggle and the easing at the end of day

believe me, don't forget me the road isn't all that long
barely a sleep and a blink til i'm home again
the fleeting shiver of home creeping in on me
i'm crawling back into your arms, make a space for me

enough sunshine under my eyes for the colours
all the blues and hues i was hoping for i've caught
up into my insides, i'm turning blue inside for you
laughing and rolling into the night when i'm aching for you

you have eyes like thunder and rain
but i have a fierce heart
you are smoke and water
but i am a roaring flame
and you like the spark in me

i'm scraping my fingernails
down the skin of my arm
to avoid touching the heat of your skin
soon i'm about to become a
correspondence lover
a lover despondent far from you
your skin against mine now would tattoo me
undo me enough that i'd be wrapped inside you
and find pieces of you scattered in me
days after the goodbye

there is a breathlessness in waiting
my suspicion is that you've already
found your way into my being by osmosis
with basslines and beats made in secret
all of that the foreplay and the premise
oh the trigger is still the flash of your eyes
touching me in the language of skin
while you're playing steam, licking the air
with sound and smoke, always responding
wanting a response from me, i sing inside and out

i'm running fingernails over shoulders
through your skin with words
a tattoo to your ear, your heart, being
my correspondence by touch and sound and letter
scattered over bodies and ideas and music
for hours and hours on end, in preparing
such sweet, soft, hard, breathless goodbyes
making new doorways of hello, making new words
contemplating such old, extraordinay sins
because you set alight the spark in me.