Renegade, run with the sharps. Cover the piles of wood with a tarp. Weigh down the tarp on the wood with a stone. Weigh down the tarp with a stone from the yard. I love you more than words can measure. It must be winter, it's already dark. No wonder I shiver without you to hold. My neck feels stiff when I sleep with a pillow. My heart feels broken when I sleep alone. I saw your breath and it looked like a whisper. You said you were hurried, you said on the phone. My breath smells like the trash in my car. You heart is as black as the mud in the river. You won't need that look where you're going. Walk through your life like a coat from the cold. Your manner is slipping, your cover is blown. Suck in the fumes from the fire. The smoke rises up to the stars. We can't see stars in the sky. This isn't quite like you pictured. It doesn't live up to what you were told. You like to act like you're hard. But you're putty, you're softer than gold. You secretly weep like a willow - Paper-thin skin and brittle bird bones. Each moment we share is a treasure. If we nurture this love, it will grow. Or just pick at the scab till it scars? You think it is a thing that is withered. We shoulda known, shoulda known from the start. All of our keepsakes are starting to mold. Outside it looks like it's starting to snow. But we're dry and dusty, right here by the fire. When I'm running late, I cut through the park. Wherever I'm going, I'm running on time. I know I'll quit when I'm ready. I'll give you a call when I'm on my way home. Don't make amends to them I wrong. I know I'll never. Crawl on my palms like a lizard When I am feeling low. Twinkle, twinkle, little star. You're holed up with your curtains drawn. Why are you always so tired? Do you really think I am jealous?

My love is big, she stretch her dress. She climbs me - Mt. Everest. Or is I the one who climb? We are living in the end-times. Oh my love is bittersweet. To love my love is sweat and labor. This mark she marked me with her teeth - I gave it too, I gave it to my neighbor. Tongue your sweetheart on his lips. Honey, take a whiff on this. My thoughts are stained in toxic sludge. Loving you is my labor of love. I move like I don't have bones, Moving like we used to do. You licking on your ice cream cone - I have often thought of you. Knocked so hard I knocked your door. It's too early - sure not nearly quarter to four. Why do I feel so strange? Ride around, little dogies, ride around my brain. Love, were you moved by the sound in my throat? It was nothing. I nibbled the crumbling biscuit. It was a trifle, it was no rose. You can't feel the thing you're twisting. What I wish you weren't wicked. It doesn't mean a thing like this to listen.

AM dial preacher preaches, "Pain is a microphone." You listen while you're pissing. You piss into your Big Gulp cup - steering on the bumpy gravel bumps, driving on the frontage road. When That Painful Lonely cranks the volume dial loud, thunder rolling and explosions cannot drown it out. Do you fear the buzzing flies of Highway 35 - rubbernecking cops? Lorena is a village of specialty shops. Yes, that open blacktop cracks you open, cracks you like a lobster claw. Exit right and dry your eyes. Love's attendants squint and yawn. Watch the constellations fading. Dawn will cut you wide on this side of Arkansas. You roam from town to town to hide your shame. You were cut clear down, like the knockout game. Did you burn that bridge yourself or were you ostracized? Do I spy the sign of Cain? It's all over your face! Now you drown in deeper depths. There is no dramatic gesture left - that you could make to sway the course of your fate or stem the tide. It's a pain that you can't numb. It's roaring loud. You sing your little lungs but it cannot mask the sound. You spun your web of lies and it tears you up inside. That pounding in your chest just knocks. And it will keep on until it stops.