Goodbyes

All I really asked for was honesty
For you to be upfront with me
It was something you said
You understood I would need
We used to talk about it constantly
You told me so many times
How you never lie
How you could never cheat
How you didn’t want to be with her
Regardless of being with me

Guess the joke all along was on me

I knew you could be cold
When you want to be
You can shut off a switch
Convince yourself so easily
Of whatever it is
You need to believe

You said I had trouble seeing past myself
That commment was true
Whether you realize it or not
You have that problem too
You don’t always take the time
To really see other points of view

You asked me once
If I would hate you for this
Back when it had just began
I told you it would really suck for me
I’d be sad, but I’d understand

And I would have.

I know it’s all the same to you
It’s not like we could have stayed friends
But did you really have to handle it that way
Is this really how you needed it to end?

You had all the power here
You just stopped speaking to me
Guess I should have listened
To the bad feeling I’d had recently

If you had just done what you promised
Been open and honest with me
It could have been so different
It didn’t need to hurt so badly

One conversation would have made the difference
Just to me, I know, not you
Now it seems you had… other things to do

So I can only assume you wanted
Me to hurt in the worst possible way
To mourn you like the dead
Who just disappear one day

Without a single word to say

I guess I never meant that much to you
For you to want to be that cruel
If you were scared you should know that didn’t come from me
It comes from inside you
I didn’t even know about her
Cry was all I figured I’d do
If I had shown up I probably
Would have laughed a little too
At myself just as much
As at the two of you

Because I’m your joke now, right
The forgotten tryst
The crazy blight
The one you just ignore outright
Does it give you those bad dreams at night?

I’m sure it will be blissful
For a while, it always is
The sex should be much better
But that’s an easy goal to hit
The comfort, the safety
Mixed with the freshness of starting new
Will feel really amazing for a while too
Who knows maybe she’s the one
And she’ll grow old with you

I don’t wish you any ill will
Because that’s not the heart I have
You never could fully understand
My perspective on all that

But don’t take all my goodbyes
In all these rhyming lines
To mean I haven’t moved on
Just one single feeling
Can inspire a hundred songs

Election Day

Yeah, I’ll be in the ballot booth today
Because there is no way I won’t participate
In making sure that this time, hate doesn’t win
In saying that people are so much deeper than their skin

My vote will say no matter what your heritage
If your family is Muslim, black, or Mexican
I don’t see you as any less of an American

I’m able to vote as a woman
But it hasn’t always been that way
Our opinions weren’t valid back in ‘the good ole days’
It scares me to see such misogyny on display
To be told my looks determine the value of what I say

I’ll be voting down the ballot
for those who understand accountability
Who don’t believe that wealth affects credibility
I’ll vote for people who always follow the science
Who want to move us away from our oil reliance

I’ll vote for the people who can act like adults
Who don’t follow party lines like it’s some kind of cult
I’ll be voting for reason, for rationality
Compromise imperitive to an indirect democracy

So I hope to see you at the voting booths today
I’ll give you a smile and go on my way
See I am not worried, I have faith we will see
That hate isn’t all that it’s hyped up to be

One Wish

Star light, star bright
first star I see tonight
Wish I may, wish I might
have the wish I wish tonight

I’ve got this one wish, it’s like a dream
A world without petty egos and bigotry
A world where love always trumps hate
Where no one feels the need to discriminate

Where it doesn’t matter what shade of skin you’re rocking
Just the content of your words when you get to talking

Where fear doesn’t override our empathy
Where we reach for compassion, for dignity
Where we don’t sneer at basic common courtesy
Because we now consider that to be “too PC”

I’ve got this wish I’d really like to see
A return to civility, to decency
Where we celebrate the optimism found in youth
You can learn just as much from them as they can from you
To when denigrating others didn’t get us off
When we found pride in things that now just elicit scoffs

But we all learn from different people, different places
And evil takes on many forms, shapes and faces
It’s passed down in families through generations
Spreading and popping up in pockets throughout the nation

I’ve got this wish that you could call a dream
Where we encourage thoughtfulness and generosity
Where we foster intellectual curiosity
And our leaders display kindness, not animosity