Medicine Bottle

Giving into love and sharing my time
Letting someone into my misery

I told it all step by step

How I landed on the island
And how I swim across the sea
And it crosses my mind
That I may awake to a knife in me
No more breath in my hair, or ladies underwear
Tossed up over the alarm clock
Blood dripping from the bed to a neatly written poem
A heartfelt last line reading
There is no more mystery
Is it gonna happen, my love?

There is no more mystery
Is it gonna happen, my love?
It's all in my head, she said, "Morning after nightmare
"You're building a wall," she said, "higher than the both of us
"So try living life, instead of hiding in the bedroom
"Show me a smile, and I'll promise not to leave you"

It happened under a rainy cloud
Passing through the dark South
We went into a big house, and slept in a small bed
I didn't know you then
As well as you of me
We talked of our sad lives
And we went off separately

And we went off separately
I found your overseas souvenirs
Holiday greeting cards
Those long forgotten high school fears
"It's all in my head," I said, banging a piano
"I've not been so alone," I thought, "since kicking in the womb"
I drank so much tea, I wrote my letters in Kanji
Around the block, I walked and walked
Pretending you were with me

Not wanting to die out here

Without you

The hurting never ends
Like birthdays and old friends
We forget that this flesh, blood, and bone is human
Trading phone lines to airlines
Unwilling to face that love is found on the inside, not the outside

And like a medicine bottle in the cabinet, I'll keep you
And like a medicine bottle in my hand, I will hold you
And swallow you slowly, as to last me a lifetime
Without holding too tight
I do not want to lose the thrill that it gives me
To look out from my window and scowl at the houses
From my world in the bedroom
"It's all in his head", she read in her girlfriend's self-help book
"It's all his own making; a war with himself
"Like two sides of a wall that separates two countries
"He shuts out the world he once knew to love you"
Not wanting to die out here

Without you

Not wanting to die out here

Without you