Since you've drawn out these lines Are you protected from trying times?

Carve your heart out yourself
Hopelessness is your cell
Since you've drawn out these lines
Are you protected from trying times?

Man it takes a silly girl to lie about the dreams she has
Lord it takes a lonely one to wish that she had never dreamt at all
Oh look now, there you go with hope again
Oh, you're so sure I'll be leaving in the end

Dig a ditch deep enough
To keep you clear of the sun
You've been burned more than once
You don't think much of trust

Man it takes a silly girl to lie about the dreams she has
Lord it takes a lonely one to wish that she had never dreamt at all
Oh look now, there you go with hope again
But I'll be sure your secret is safe with me
Oh, you're so sure I'll be leaving in the end
Treating me like I'm already gone

But I'm not, I will stay where you are always
I will stay, I will stay, I will stay (all of now)

SHE SAID IT’S A SEASON WHEN EVERYTHING DIES: By Diane Seuss
for Lauren

and who am I to tell her otherwise?

The dog pulls me down the darkening street

toward a slender, blue-lipped moon that lies

concave upon its violet winding sheet.

I’ve tried to say the leaves are the trees’ hair;

like hair they will grow back, or like the skins

of coral snakes, dispensable. I swear

that fall can cleave from summer, conjoined twins

stuck together at the skull, severed,

so one can stay behind where all is green.

The other, maybe stronger, wearing her

white jacket, walks into cold, a queen

of complication, change, frost flowers, inflection,

of living fish beneath the ice, of resurrection.