She Stayed As Steam

All that music in your mouth

Rivers rushing at your teeth

Cresting waves through waiting valleys

Flooded language tributaries

Collecting cover over me

Your tensing jaw and corkscrew eyelids

As if you couldn't bear to see

All that water pouring from you

Collecting clouds inside the ballroom

Over people who don't know you

But darling, I do

You trance yourself back from the city

But not moving to your feet

Your footfalls tentative and muffled

Automatic, listless shuffle

Sidewalk scatterbrain cry uncle

And pinch yourself back in your corner

And look for her on your TV

It's Friday night and I am hungry

For a hand, a mouth, a body

A love I wouldn't have to carry

A stitch in my mouth

That I'm untying now

A concrete canal

In a bomb border town

An echo in the rafters reminding you there was a sound

But you killed her in waves

So she stayed as steam to hiss at you now

Yeah, you killed her in waves

But all that's not today

So you breathe through your mouth

Try to calm yourself down

And keep what you found and shout it out loud

But you're harboring hurt

Like dissolving dirt

So cover your mouth

Or she might stay as steam

Soak into the beams

Until you figure her out