Nobody knows what I want
None of them know who I am
I want the truth so strong
That it comes right up and bites you on the shoulder with its friendly teeth

I know omission’s a lie
It’s in every deceit and disguise
And I want the truth so strong
That comes right up and bites me on the shoulder with its friendly teeth

I don’t care how ugly you say you are
It’s me that gets to decide
Truth and beauty in the beholder’s eyes
And there’s nothing more ugly than lies upon lies upon lies

I’ve been everyone’s fool
And lies are the harshest cruelty
Now I want a truth so strong
That comes right up and bites me on the shoulder with its friendly teeth

I want a sharp breeze
Of the kind that takes your breath
An ounce of trepidation in my step
With a slight discomfort in my zone
To leap, carefully, into the unknown

Nobody knows what I want
None of them know who I am
I want the truth so strong
That comes right up and bites me on the shoulder with its friendly teeth

When the world has lost its edges
You’ll find me where two ends meet
Where the endings the beginning again
And everything’s complete

I’ve been drawing a circle
Back to myself
So slowly it looked like a line
That I went way off
Faraway from the place
That I started

Don’t you wonder
How it is what it was


I’ve been drawing a circle
Around myself
To keep from the dangerous
Dark eclipsing
Circling round the doubt
A ring
To never let in or give out

Don’t you wonder
How it is what it was

I’ve been drawing a circle
Back to myself

The water hugs the harbour
And it’s swelling like the flesh of peach
Breathing like the belly of a baby softly lost in sleep
I could go under
Slip down in the deep
At the bottom of deepest sea
Would I finally find release

Your love won’t float
For fear of drowning
My heart’s not the boat


The birds are singing brightly in the tall trees of Skeoch wood
And scarcely I believed that peace of mind in life could be as good
I could remember, it all, the walls beyond
If it all falls, from the forest would I even know it’s gone

Your love won’t fly
For fear of falling
Now I won’t share the sky

Another summer, ‘nother winter, ‘nother fall
All the leaves on trees, for all the woods, I can see it all
And all the while I wonder what it won’t or what it will
Wherever you are it’s all there ever still

Your love won’t fly for fear of falling
Now I don’t share the sky

Do you know now
Not that I need you to
Do you know now

That no part of me
Is a part of you
Do you know now

There’s no blood and no bone
To connect me to you
No familiar, no friend
Every contact cut or ended

Do you know now
Not that I need you to

You’re a metaphor for fear
In my troubled sleep
An Ideé fixe
Symbolic of anxiety
A warning

Do you know now
Not that I need you to
Do you know now

That no part of you
Is a part of me
Do you know now

Almost a mirror
But not quite
Reflect in river
Clear and concise
Poised and precise
Glass and ice

Always be nice
Just a slice, a sliver
Fine on the eye
I can reliably refine
What you like

Almost a mirror
Not quite
Sleak and it’s silver
Pellucidite
Crystaline shine
So bright

It’s lie like
All an illusionary trick of the light
I can reliably refine
Every sight

Bright red
The blood that I have bled for you
Trying to see it through
Trying to do

Am I nothing more
What I can bear for
If damaged fruit
Is all I can give to you
That‘ll have to do

I can’t bear
Bring myself to blame myself again
It isn’t fair
We’re all taught to tear ourselves apart

It broke my heart
‘Til I, willing to die
Could see no light
In my fruitless life

Bright red
The blood that I have bled for you
Trying to see it through
Trying to do

There’s a room where everyone hangs on my every word
But in our haunted house my daddy rarely heard a word I said
My lover loves me most of all
He can write a beautiful love song but he can barely sing at all

My mother praised me for being truthful all my days
But I needed things that I did not say
I did not ask, did not complain
I let my wants washed away
My lover loves me most of all
He can write a beautiful love song but he can barely sing it all

I let the heartless make a host of me
And they plundered me for melody
Left me not a note to sing
They would have taken everything
But my lover loves me most of all
He can write a beautiful love song but he can barely sing at all

Maybe I won’t be no one’s mother in the end
I took the pills, the potions and the vitamins
But I could not keep my darlings in
My lover loves me most of all
He can write a beautiful love song but he can barely sing at all

I will not ruin what I’ve got
All things I am and I’m not
I will not live my life in pain
If I can’t see the way on any given day
I’ll take a breath and look again
For my lover loves me most of all, and he’ll write a beautiful love song though he can barely sing at all

Bring me a double-edged sword
And I’ll show you an iron will
I need nothing but in my armoury
For I am standing still


A steely gaze though I am made of lead
I’ve nothing but the thoughts that I’ve gathered in my head
And I have been concerned with little else for hours & hours
My ability to stay alive’s my only power


Bring me a double-edged sword
And I’ll show you an iron will
I need nothing but in my armoury
For I am standing still


I mean resilience when I speak of strength
& we shall see in 5 or 10 or maybe 15 years hence
I’m not the like to be deterred by an idle threat
My memory’s an elephant you never will forget

Bring me a double-edged sword
And I’ll show you an iron will
I need nothing but in my armoury
For I am standing still

You’re a loose cannon baby and I’m a firecracker
What a beautiful mess we make
Leaving dust in our wake
Laying waste to it all
No good, for goodness’ sake

Down in the earth divining its worth
Weighed in blood and in bone
In a fruitless pursuit
Of some notion of truth
Between a rock and a stone

Like moths to a flame
Drowning in shame
We’re losing every game
Cos we’d rather find out
Excluding all doubt
And go brightly burning out


Burn in the hearth, at the heart of it all
In bright lights and fire we fall
Bathed in our light
As we spoil for a fight
And triumph overall


You’re a loose cannon baby and I’m a firecracker
What a beautiful mess we make
Leaving dust in our wake
Laying waste to it all
No good, for goodness’ sake

He plays a song
On a lute he made
Its pure tone
Made of dead woman’s bones

The tune he plays
Are the notes he stole
And those words
Such lovely words
Such poetry
A dead woman’s poems

The words she wrote
His literal hand on her metaphorical throat

He takes his wares
To the market square
Where the men confer
They then aver
“what intricate things he strings
from dead woman’s limbs”
And so it goes

For what’s a song
Without a strong man
Stringing along

The calm
After the storm
You can’t kill me
After all

When all’s said and done
Under the sun
You can’t kill me
I won

So getting stronger
Has begun
You can’t kill me
It’s done

Pieces shattered like stardust that reformed
Making the darkest of midnights into dawn
Growing the sweetest of roses from the thorns
Going the closest to breaking, being reborn

The calm
After the storm
You can’t kill me
After all

Like a sentence
Without a kind word
Leaves me speechless

Untie, untangle and deny
That it ever was at all
Refuse to reply
To words never heard

Fool me once
Shame on me, shame on me, shame me twice
All lines, all ended, then amended, extended, reprised
Every time

Parenthesis, I (think I) am done with you

Put cessation in its place and face down the demon
Now darkness is only an absence of light in its space

To keep staring into the void
Re-wounding indefinitely is a choice
I choose not to make
A path it didn’t take
Undestroyed

Parenthesis, I (think I) am done with you

There are windows to open
A curtain to draw
To let hope out the building
Let the winds roar through the halls
If it doesn’t belong, ‘til it’s gone

Parenthesis, I (think I) am done with you

On a page, in a book, in a drawer
In a house I don’t live anymore
Is a thought
The tiniest pause
One breath
A singular cause for hope
That you ever loved me at all

Sing us one of your sad songs
The one about love
Make it make us give in and never give up
Sing a bittersweet sadness
So we all slow down
Make us swim for the shore
Make us drown
Make it grounded, magic somehow

Sing us one of your sad songs
The one about time
Make us die on the inside
And feel so alive
Tell us the world is illusion
But you know the truth
Say it’s beautiful, show us proof

Make us something from nothing
The light of a fire
Made of merely a mirage
A trick to inspire
Sing a sound that we’re drawn to
When we’re feeling low
Spin your alchemy, give us hope

Sing us one of your sad songs
The one about truth
Speak for all of us and only for you