Disintegrating Heart

Even your eyes
Even your dark eyes
Shed more light
Than a sunrise

Just your voice
Just your bright voice
Sheds enough light
Light to see by

I was broken
I was lonely
I was disintegrating heart
Before you
I gave everything too much thought
Before you
Everything was overwrought
Before you, before you

Even your cries
Even your blind rage
Are like the open air
After a tiny cage

I was dead-ended
A bruised and distended,
trapped and disintegrating heart
I was up-ended
Lost and expended,
trapped and disintegrating heart
Before you
I gave everything too much thought
Before you
Everything was overwrought
Before you, before you

Tied to the Post

You can hold my eyes
Hold my body with yours
But my mind’s flown out
The open doors

This is happening
Too much these days
Gave it too much freedom
Now it never obeys

I’ve always allowed it
To wander at will
When I’m tied to the post
It can make its own kill

What have I done,
Who is this beast
Who comes home bloody-mouthed
Though I’ve laid out a feast?

My mind’s this treacherous thing
With a pair of dark wings
When I want it to stay
That’s when it quickly flits away

Perhaps I should keep it
Hooded and caged
But when I tried that before
It became so enraged

I slowly lost
My will and nerve
Now there’s no question
Who rules and who serves

My mind’s this treacherous thing
With its dark powerful wings
When I ask it to stay
That’s when it always slips away

It’s such a terrible thing
I should have clipped its wings
But if I forced it to stay
It would just escape in some other way

I Disagree

I disagree
I disagree
With everything you’re telling me

I’ve been so good
I’ve held my tongue
I learned my role
When I was young

I’ve disagreed
Too secretly
With everything you’ve been telling me

I’ve held in
My quiet rage
It wants some freedom
In its old age

Hollow Beating

This hollow beating
Keeps repeating
And its ragged pleading
Is so misleading

It’s always there
It never rests
A low dull ache
In my chest

This dark slow bleeding
Drains all feeling
Except for needing
This endless needing

It never goes out
It never rests
A pilot light
In my chest

But I am learning
Not to take this yearning
As some kind of sign
Some kind of clue
To who I should be
and what I should do

I must stop reading
Any meaning
In this hollow beating
This endless repeating

It’s always there
It never rests
A part of me
As my own breath

And it won’t stop seething
Til I stop breathing
This hollow beating…

Fame and Glory

I guess the truth is
I need my time alone
I’m not shy or timid
Solitude runs deep in my bones

I want a quiet life
Lived quietly
With just my baby
And my baby and me

I read a lot of books
Never go out at night
You may not hear about me
And that’s really all right

I wouldn’t trade
All my privacy
For any amount of
Fame and glory

So I hope that you’re not waiting for me
To turn into something that I’ll never be
I’ll never be
I’ve never wanted to be

It’s not that I don’t trust
Your advice per se
But I’ve become too fond
Of doing things my own way

It’s taken me
A long, long time to see
That most of your rules
Need not apply to me

So I hope that you’re not waiting for me
To turn into something that I’ll never be
I’ll never be
I’ve never wanted to be
Something that I will never be
Will never be
I’ve never wanted to be
And I won’t make the mistake of thinking
that would make me happy

Who I Am

Who am I, who am I
Who am I to hide?

If I am cast in the die
Then who am I to hide?

Who am I, who am I
Who am I to disguise

This deep cry, this inner cry?
So who am I to let the rift grow wide?

Who am I to hide
Who I am, who I am
Who I am?

Habits

It’s a habit
You inhabit
Your life-full
Of habits

It’s a tyranny
The unconscious slave in me
Does what they command
Shackled feet and hand

There’s no way around it
You must inhibit your habit
And do something new
Even if it feels backwards to you
You must do something new
Even if it feels backwards to you

They are dear to me
Even when they savagely
Push and hold me down
To this cold familiar ground

And there’s no way around it
I must inhibit these habits
And try something new
With nothing to turn to
I must try something new
In my nakedness, with nothing to turn to

Empty Shelf

My life once felt
Like a dusty shelf
And I was repelled
By my rusty self

So I told my heart
To grow up and move out
For holding me back
And wearing me out

When you moved out
I lost all source of heat
And gained an awful silence
Without your steady beat

Now this block of ice
Is lodged in my throat
Where the blood once flowed
Is now a frozen moat

Come on home, old heart of mine
You can be my black and blue valentine
I’ll never make you try to be
The calculating part of me

Come on home, old heart of mine
Ten years is such a long time
I’ll finally let you be
The living, beating
The living beating part of me

Meristem

When you heard that awful sound
And found the helpless bleeding doe
You stayed with her until her life ran out

That was just like you

You still come often to this place
Where thick salal has overgrown
The quiet remains of clean white bones

And dwell in the memory of her eyes
That seemed to say she was more alive
Upon her death than she’d ever been in life

That’s just like you

I Don't Believe It

Maybe I suffer from grand delusions
Maybe you should sell your soul down the river
Maybe we have made nothing but poor choices
Maybe they were right about that after all

But I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it
I don’t believe it, and nor do you

Maybe I lack essential drive
Maybe you really are too sensitive
Maybe we are naïve and foolish
Maybe they were right about that after all

But I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it
I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it

Under Hypnosis

Pheromone meet pheromone
burning ear meet monotone
bleary eyes meet tousled room
bedside table meet wilted bloom

Pheromone meet pheromone
glass-eyed doll meet him alone
still-soft petals meet soulless gloom
aching heart meet empty room

Too many things always began
under hypnosis of the ceiling fan

by alicia hansen

Alcoholic

I still believe in all strange things
like these old heart strings
They’re always making something
out of nothing

Old wires conspire in my circuitry
to lock down the compound
where you live in me

Your smoke rings give my lungs wings
of a fledgling

You are too carpe diem for me
And after all, an alcoholic it’s plain to see

I still believe only strange things
pull these heart strings

by alicia hansen

Homesickness

I scraped both knees on the sharp black stones
when you and I found that pile of sun-bleached bones
And we shared the rocking chair
Where your grandma died last year in the summer air

And you swam to me from the other beach
when I was afraid to jump, for fear of leaches
I know you were good to me even then

This is, this is what you call
Homesickness

We didn’t talk for several years
I know you had a right to be mad at me
’cause I wasn’t good to you then

This is, this is what you call
Homesickness

by alicia hansen

Freighters

We are just two eyes, two hands,
one mouth, one skin,
you and I
But more and more,
we are becoming of two minds

You are looking across the table at me
As if the wooden surface
was the North Atlantic Sea

We slowly stitched together one patchwork skin
That up till now we have both happily lived in

I am looking across the table at you
And see the loosened corners
pulling away from the glue

We were once two eyes, two hands,
one mouth, one skin…

but this frozen tongue
has now undone
all the seams and the stitching in between
We’ll pack up our parts
and throw out our hearts
and ship this love
back where it came from

On freighters

by alicia hansen

Apple Core

Can flat become round?
Can mute become sound?
If you take a bite
will it heal overnight?
Can your word of the day
keep your sentence away?
Can you walk when you can’t feel your feet?
Won’t they take you down the same street?

Oh apple core
Is there nothing more?

Can smoke pass for mist?
Can a bite seem a kiss?
If mouths grow too weak
will lungs learn to speak?
Are the notes you revoke
like a chord round your throat?
Can you burn when you can’t feel the fire?
Won’t it lure you to sleep on your pyre?

Oh apple core
Is there nothing more?
I can see where the teeth tore
Is this what we’ve been ripening for?

by alicia hansen

In Armies

He sent me out of myself
in armies
A force of thousands
He sent me out of myself
away from my enduring guard
with a heedless strength
not my own

He sent me out of myself
through the wall of my sealed skin
When I came back
there was no one left within
When I came back
(without my armies)
when I came back
(my force of thousands)
there was no one left within

by alicia hansen

Poison Tree

Without hearts to hang from the trees
Without wilted lovers dangling in the breeze
How will you feed
your insatiable need?

Will you come back to pluck out its thorns
to harvest the sap and peel off the torn
and bruised bark
that blazed into life from your careless spark?

I have this poison tree
you planted under me
Will you taste its fruit?
There’s enough for even you

Like too many things I once adored
the sweetest fruit has toxin in the core
that makes me hunger more

Will you taste its fruit?
I have this poison tree

by alicia hansen

Clear Enough

And you want me to believe
that this is good enough

But now I know
that this
is not good enough

Not good enough
for either of us
Not good enough
for any of us

Can’t we make it clear enough?

by alicia hansen

Norway

I was waiting in foreign rains
with the company of hungry starlings
and empty trains

I was waiting with bated breath
’til they told me someone of your
description came and then left

Did you leave with the ghost of me?
She’ll last much longer than
the living me

I’m a stranger to this sky overhead
It’s been months since I’ve slept
in my own bed

Maybe she’ll give you back your youth
and your sense of truth

I’ll carry on to Norway
I didn’t want to love you anyway
I’ll go back to Norway
because I didn’t want to love you anyway

by alicia hansen

If You Asked Me

I’ve been awake in your bed for hours
and still you sleep with your back to me
Only the dusty shafts of light through your blinds
offer me their pale company

I didn’t ask you to lose yourself in me
You are a wonder of inconsistency

If you just asked me
If you just asked me
If you just asked me

Dust has no face to turn away
and it watches me as I rise
from your half-cold bed,
from your distant sleep
as this whole delusion dies

I would open
Everything would open I
f you just asked me

If you just asked me…

by alicia hansen

Fractograph

If this room could hold the deafening sound
of my lungs moving in and out
Then I’d release this heavy breath
from the stony ruins of my chest

All that I was invested in
rent tiny rifts along my skin
Wind and time opened the cracks
’til fractures split me front to back

If these walls could hold the angry flood
of infected thoughts and thinning blood
then I’d release the worn out veins
the arteries’ pulsing blame

In every wall there’ll be a door
Windows from ceiling to floor
and I will slowly forget my cage
of self defeat and rage

I used to have beauty for you
but now I have smashed that too
My hollow face, fragmented frame
-can’t find nothing but myself to blame

If these walls could hold my organs in
then I’d peel off this eroded skin
and let the strong foundation beams
support the weight of my half-dead dreams

And a heaping pile of bones
will be stacked outside this new home
and I will spark a flame
shut the door to my smoking shame

by alicia hansen