Elliott Yamin - Wait For You

I never felt nothing in the world like this before
Now I'm missing you
And I'm wishing that you would come back through my door
Why did you have to go?
You could have let me know
So now I'm all alone,
Girl you could have stayed
but you wouldn't give me a chance
With you not around it's a little bit more then I can stand
And all my tears
they keep running down my face
Why did you turn away?

So why does your pride make you run and hide?
Are you that afraid of me?
But I know it's a lie what you keep inside
This is not how you want it to be

So baby I will wait for you
Cause I don't know what else I can do
Don't tell me I ran out of time
If it takes the rest of my life

Baby I will wait for you
If you think I'm fine it just ain't true
I really need you in my life
No matter what I have to do I'll wait for you

It's been a long time since you called me
(How could you forget about me?)
You got me feeling crazy
How can you walk away?
Everything stays the same
I just can't do it baby
What will it take to make you come back
Girl I told you what it is and it just ain't like that
Why can't you look at me, you're still in love with me
Don't leave me crying.

Baby why can't we just start over again
Get it back to the way it was
If you give me a chance I can love you right
But you're telling me it wont be enough

So baby I will wait for you
Cause I don't know what else I can do
Don't tell me I ran out of time
If it takes the rest of my life

Baby I will wait for you
If you think I'm fine it just ain't true
I really need you in my life
No matter what I have to do I'll wait for you

So why does you pride make you run and hide
Are you that afraid of me?
But I know it's a lie what your keeping inside
Thats not how you want it to be

Baby I will wait for you
Baby I will wait for you
If it's the last thing I do

Baby I will wait for you
Cause I don't know what else I can do
Don't tell me I ran out of time
If it takes the rest of my life

Baby I will wait for you
If you think I'm fine it just ain't true
I really need you in my life
No matter what I have to do I'll wait for you

I'll be waiting.

Work Ethic.

It would have been a mistake to talk to me last night. I fall off the face of the world easily. Too easily, perhaps.

I don't want to be disfavorable. I want to be lost, well enough to never be found by your outsiders, ever again. I want to be hidden. Forgotten.

never discovered, ever again.

dont touch me. forget me. forgive me, if you must, but release me into the ether. I have worlds to build, paces to walk through My sanity lies in defeating expectation and defying the norm.

travel lightly. smile softly.
never forget where we come from.
we are going on a journey, as friends.
(I like the way I'm making F's. It's pretty.)

let's run away from this place. come with me, into the freedoms, lying naked out in the sun. they wont recognize you when you're gone but for now they can't forget...and cant get enough.

let's play on the beach, under the sun, until the tide rolls far enough in to snatch us up.

youre hiding from me.
I'm in class. you're still hiding from me.
I wanted to explore to expand my horizons. just...to go further.

I'm so tired.

help me. free me.

somehow.

Towers

I’ve waited outside
walls of towers
I never wanted to breach,
just to have a chance
to call up
ask the guards,
what’s the view like
from inside

Amnesia

It's strange, to wake up and realize--
I don't know who I am, anymore.
I found the phone in the basement,
brought it to therapy
and they told me I'd know inside
who everyone was.
Because I should have some sense
who I would call Brat
and who this Angel character is,
who grins often enough to be Laughter
and who Falls, Falling, Fallen--

It was worse
--in the basement--
finding traces, but not sure what to make yet:
Racing suits, caps and goggles, towels...
And someone told me I signed my summer away,
came here to make something of myself,
only... I don't know what that was.
They showed me the record board,
told me that was my name,
that I did great things, and could, again.
It's the wondering, though--
if I was good because I loved it
or good because I just...was.
More than fear, not wanting to touch the water again
worried about recognition
maybe the realization that
I'm not the same person I was when this week began.

Imagine this:
walking by a hundred people
wondering how many you hated
how many were your friends.
How many people you just...didn't know.
They told me, in therapy--
I'll still know, as me, somewhere inside.
It's programmed.
And they warned me, in therapy--
my fingers will still know the drill.
I'll be able to open any account
I ever had--that hacking myself is based on muscle memory, now.
That some things are impossible to forget
and others I'll never really remember.
That conflagration is to blame
for every instant that seems poignant--
every pause filled with recall.
Just a brain, making stuff up to fill in the gaps
changing sides every so often to keep things...
interesting. And maybe me, paying attention
instead of wandering off
gone to look for myself.

Collection

You made a mistake, getting attached.

I warned you.

Told you you were wrong.

Why do you think we worked in the first place?

Because we never worked.

Why are you enjoying the silence?

It's the escape from addiction.

At least, for now.

Word of the Day - Mint

The taste of mint on your lips reminds me of better days, when we walked together, hands entwined, up the hill that spelled out our destiny. Of days when your eyes would meet mine, and I could be lost in them, the same endless blue of the pool, the same endless blue of the skies. The blue depth of your eyes–
But the taste of mint recalls more. Mornings, spent in your arms, love.
Midnights spent alone, with bare memories for comfort.

Conversations with the floor
are better than discussion with you
For one thing, the floor only hits once
and never when I'm already down
For another, the floor breaks my fall
once it breaks my bones
Instead of making my fall and breaking me
The floor doesn't lie when it's mad
speak in a soft voice
beckon invitingly -
then strike
It holds me after punsihment
reassuring me that it won't hurt me
as long as I stay near
and unlike you
the floor means it
true the whole world over
from concrete in your basement
to the carpet in mine
across different species -
dust and pavement
and sand
But if you promise I'm safe tonight
I can't walk from man to man
and expect equal treatment among them
and I can't expect you'll take me back again
without breaking my legs this time
for walking away
And them my arm
for daring to haul myself up the stairs
My nose
because you never liked the way it looked
And then my skull
for harboring traitorous thoughts
like
I might be better off
alone

His name was Laughter

He asked when I was moving, finally
when I'd go back to Ohio.
Four days. At most. Sooner, if I can get away.
Text conversations are built into silence, in silence, silently -
That eager?
Eager. Impatient. Bored.
...I see.
But tell me - why?
He said - that's easy.
I want to hurt you. Fuck you. Break you,
until there's nothing left. Until none of your friends would recognize this shell
After shaky silence
and consideration
of all that's gone before
I said okay
as long as I can still write
And he told me, babe -
I want you to give our story to the world.

Storyteller

The best stories you tell
..... are the lies
.......... when you think no one
............... knows the truth

You've got that trick down -
..... separating emotion from words
.......... and reconnecting them in fucked up ways
............... like a verbal Frankenstein

It's In the Details

every detail I could want to know
is contained in the broader word:
dog
chair
fish
house

but the three-legged Irish setter
missing her left ear isn't the same
miniature greyhound with a broken tail
and bleach white paws
that you had in mind

and my grandma's rickety wheelchair,
old enough to have been jacked from a sanatorium
back in the days when they still existed
isn't the mahogany rocker
you were thinking of

and while I don't know that much about fish,
the piranha that feasts on flesh
and the salmon on my dinner plate
aren't quite the same

and neither is my house - an abandoned wreckage
drooping from the weight of too many memories
and a lack of laughter
like yours,
starving from a lack of children
and over usage of bad puns.

So do us all a favor.
Details, please.
Or I'll just assume your murderer
is holding a letter opener,
not an ax
and be confused as to how an overhand chop
with such a dainty item
could dispatch
two ill trained, fashion-senseless
Russian miscreants wearing matching pea-coats in dark grey
and no pants.
I mean.
Really.
What else comes to mind when you
think
murder?

I Remember...II

I remember picking out the suitcase and the dress--matching but not at the same time.

I remember walking through NYC and getting catcalls.

I remember my heels clicking against the tiled floors in Manhattan.

I remember putting on lipstick this morning and wondering if it would be smudged by the end of the day.

I remember sitting on a bench next to a pair of black guys, who kept looking at me like they had questions they were afraid to share.

I remember one of them reaching into his pocket.

I remember getting tense, not-looking, trying to hide knowing that he was going for a switchblade.

I remember that morning when my younger sister Mona drew an S on my hand in fancy figure, done in pen, and told me it was good luck.

I remember trying to wash it off and failing.

I remember debating gloves, to cover it up, but deciding not to.

I remember the man who asked me to dance.

I remember he was lanky and awkward, dark eyes and muddy hair with a mouth too thin, eyes too spaced and an ugly personality to match.

I remember I said yes.

I remember dancing, led by strong arms, while the man complimented how fuckable I looked, how like a whore, a slut, in my pink dress.

I remember picking out that pink and white, frills and lace dress with Misha and Shizuku.

I remember trying it on, standing in the fitting room laughing that it barely passed my fingertips.

I remember whirls of pink and powder blue as we bought matching dresses, all of us.

I remember the room with the drawers, and I remember pulling my suitcase after me, led by the ugly man from the dance floor.

I remember seeing the rag.

I remember being amused, thinking ruefully that this was what I should have feared.

I remember being placed in the suitcase, and I remember, before he zipped it closed, that it was a tight fit.

I Remember...I

I remember incense, floating into the air and men crying while the black marble baptismal font just stood there, hazy in the smoke.

I remember not understanding at the time.

I remember clawing my way up the stairs, intent on getting out of the basement.

I remember curling up with the dog--a black Labrador Retriever named Raven.

I remember living in a tent on a boat for four days, making the crossing to Juneau.

I remember a kite cake and celebrating my birthday with my sister's.

I remember birthdays, but they were always in June, except for this year.

I remember my family celebrating my birthday before I left home, almost a month in advance.

I remember dumpster diving behind the Crate Center.

I remember the old leather trench coat I found and how it smelled like train oil and old memories.

I remember rain.

I remember how painful a bad race is.

I remember how to forget how painful a bad race is, so that when the whistle goes off for finals, I can work up the courage to step on the blocks and look fearless.

I remember being told I am fearless.

I remember crying my eyes out in the rain, after running away.

I remember the only fight we had.

I remember the words on his lips and his poetry.

I remembering breaking form and living instead of waiting.

I remember changing.

I remember becoming hard and cold and learning how to forgive all injustices, as long as the atrocities were restricted to me, not others.

I remember my first short story.

I remember my last novel, and the work I intended to be true, turning into falsehood and failure.

I remember ashes in a fireplace, but the campfire stands out more, with a young arsonist, high on love and mental lust, dancing around the flames with his then-girlfriend, and best friend and a girl named Jill.

I remember watching him in his then-girlfriend's room.

I remember learning to forget.

I remember that 2+2 is four and that 2x2 is four and that 2² is four and that two is the only even prime number.

I remember that if f(x)=your face and g(x)=your mom, that g(f(x))=my face/your mom, and that on the axis of life, that sort of math is legitimate but censored.

I don't remember why that's important. Just that it is. Or...was.