The Natural

I don’t live in a dream
I live in a land forgotten

Once, the words poured from me like water
Always in a straight line
Sometimes silly and awkward
But a straight line

Now the words pour like a curled ribbon twisting around like a stick with one end
My mind drifts and sways on breezes like kites
When I try to hold it still, the world seems to shake instead and I wonder if I will ever be able to go back to what I once was
I look through my mind like memories and I try to grab hold
But they are still water and slip through my grasp
I want to wield the words like bricks and build a great building that everyone will want to see
I made this choice, you see, once long ago, and I cannot bear to think that it was wrong
I still do love it so
But I cannot get my mind to stay
And I rhyme to words forgotten
I look back with confusion like the words of someone else
I cannot remember how I got them
But I can see them in my head
But they do not glow like they used to

Once the words poured from me like water
Now they pour like sand
Grainy and gritty and an inconvenience and I am a hummingbird and it hurts to touch a key
I want to weep and I want to die and I want to drift into my head and stay
And yet I remain afraid of the night and the sleep
Of the times when I fall and fall
And it hurts to touch a key when I have nothing to say
To bend my mind to this task
To have nothing to say
And I flee and throw myself on the bed
And my mind drifts away on the notes of a song

Once the words poured from me like water
Sometimes they were silly and awkward
Sometimes they were every note of my heart and mind
Sometimes they were all I could ever love
Now the fire has gone and I think I made a mistake
The reason that needed no reason or the choice that was no choice

Once the words poured from me like water
Now they lie behind a dam I did not build and I wonder if the water was ever mine

Once the words poured from me like water
Now they have left me behind