EMILY LERRUA poetry, lyrics etc.

[emilylerrua-blog]

STILL

tie me down if you like, my love.

i’ve been told i can carry your weight

through this hot summer, so let me be

the cup into which this water is poured

i will not shatter but be warned

if you should ask me to turn

my own mind one-eighty in upon itself

these old bones will click out of their joints

and i will not hold you anymore.

but i suppose you can rest here for 

a little while, like this dandelion seed

stuck to my mother’s sweater.

[emilylerrua-blog]

IN SICKNESS

[dearest. i feel certain that i am going mad again.]

hear what the blind man said

nothing left to eat come the morning

leave your supper and leave your sleep

and go on down to the riverside

not gonna wait for you my lover

there isn’t room in my new suitcase

catch a bus if you can be bothered

listen to what the blind man said

the blind leading the blinded back

unpeeling their layers like soft fruit

kiss goodbye to yourself from me

there’ll be nothing to eat in the morning

a green-eyed ghost will lead my way

scattering cats on unsteady feet

collecting stones in my coat pockets

leave your lover and leave your sleep

please don’t try to follow my mind

all that’s left to eat is yesterday’s vomit

close your ears and close your eyes

and come on down on your knees to pray

the river rushes blindly back

it swallows the stones sat in my pockets

a nail without a coat to hang

green water rolling over my bones

[emilylerrua-blog]

TENSION

could you please uncoil yourself from 

around my mind it's hard to take a breath 

sometimes souls of the same cloth 

bumping up ungainly against each other 

both stirred up for some electric shock 

i see you in flickers through a pinhole lens 

and today you're a bull in a china shop 

fractures creep along your glassy frame 

i see us parallel with everything on the air 

shuffling our selves like packs of cards 

nothing's sacred anymore thank god 

never quite ready to close the book 

and let the dust settle on another’s skin

[put the line breaks wherever you want]

[emilylerrua-blog]

PRODIGAL

feel the nausea of creation

and cremation pushing names

to the roof of your mouth^

where they sour like

my breath, my tongue

(god take away these lips

this mouth that sips and spits)

-- I dreamt my hands were fire

not hot, but fissures of light --

how can I smother myself?

the hiss the slip of smoke

undressing flesh

(god take away these eyes

that speak and slide silently)

o to undo the done in a sigh...

still scared to face the mirror

keeping my legs splayed apart;

an open wound that bites!

teeth like sharp and shiny stones.

[emilylerrua-blog]

COLD FISH

it’s like eating sardines out of the tin

in a room with only a lamp

and forgetting about it, letting

the bones sit swilling in the oil

and smelling it the next day

and you don’t know where it’s coming from

but it’s you, the smell is on you

the smell of rotten you, rotting

the girl you were sleeping with last week

is gone, you told her go for good

you’ve changed the sheets

three times in the last three weeks

trying to feel clean again

trying to kid yourself

but you’ve done it again

and there are no clean sheets left

and the last time you ever saw her

her dark eyes were disgusted

and you saw the boy you didn’t mean to hurt

this afternoon, in the murky daylight

and he smiled calmly and kindly

but you can’t even say

that you loved him, and the room is

dank and unromantic, an unphoto

and the cold fish sits in

the corner of the room stinking out

the four square walls, and you realise

you will never get the smell out

[emilylerrua-blog]

TWICE SAD

I can’t work out

whether it’s actually you that I miss

or if I just miss

the way you made me feel

[emilylerrua-blog]

OVER YOU

It’s time / I’m able to forget you

finally, been scraping out those pieces of you

for months now / Ready for someone who isn’t you

ready for a new and different love / In the long run, you

won’t stay behind in my mind / Right now forgetting the last of you

[emilylerrua-blog]

SHADOW

you are exactly

what I was hiding from

for all those long years

[emilylerrua-blog]

A TASTE OF YOUR OWN

You had me tail-spinning

an ouroboros folding over

smaller falling in upon itself.

I was searching for each of us

again and again in the other

another longing for together.

Now open your lips and try

a little of something you

might not have had before.

I’ll trip you up over your own

reflection leaving only questions

you’ll never answer without me.

[emilylerrua-blog]

SIX MONTHS

Hades doesn’t know how he’s going to make it without her

Half a dozen pomegranate seeds are far from satisfying

[emilylerrua-blog]

FAUSTUS

Made a deal with a god with jeans slung low

Said I’d give you up to get up again

He tells me things that I already know

I should’ve given you up a long time ago

[emilylerrua-blog]

UNHOLY PENNY DROP

I breathe wrong and

everything I had ready to say

falls out of my mind

[emilylerrua-blog]

LIPSTICK

So,

there’s this one lipstick, and 

      - I’m not superstitious or anything, but -

one day I lost it 

and I swear to God

I had the worst fucking luck

     of my life

           until I found it again.

[emilylerrua-blog]

DRIVING AT NIGHT

In that one-night cheap hotel room

I told you how to spell my name

I liked that I could make you laugh

I fell in love before I realised what I’d done

Now I’m driving at night 

In the strange half-light when colours turn to grey

Electric rain on the window shield

Going somewhere I’ve never been before

It might be a mistake to tell you this

But I don’t want to leave you behind

Got an angry god on my shoulder

Telling me I should have said goodbye

I’ve never seen a storm like this before 

The motorway explodes in shards of light

I keep on driving and the rain turns into hail

[emilylerrua-blog]

HIS NAME

                   It takes a while

but when I concentrate my mind's eye

for long enough, and hard enough

I can see you

    blurred, as through a frosted window.

My breath cracks across the glass

defrosting your image.

He turns and smiles and hugs his arm

around my neck -

     a comforting noose, warm,

but a ghost of my own creation.

Your name is biblical.

In your absence I spell it out in my mind.

I want to shout it over and over again;

proclaim it like a faith

     a god,

holy words to make unholy prayer.

While staring at the green light beside your name

I finally, comically, know how Gatsby felt.

    I keep coming back to it,

to you. I want you as you are, now -

and that’s what amazes and terrifies me:

your ghost is the best portrait

                        that I've ever made.