"Little Blue" by Sasha Haydn

Wooden boy looking down on his duress-- 

Steaming mess with

Distress he wont see until the undress, 

Sewn into denim, stowing in the pile of weeds,

"He looks like an angel to me,"

Falling asleep on the sound of plucked strings 

You had me at you skin, 24. 

Years running from the taste of Ambien--

21-- the realism comes 

The back of my tongue 

Will be morning breath

You had me at you skin

21 years running from 

the taste of Ambien, 

21--

The realism comes  

The taste on my tongue will be my last little death

He left me dawning

I wake to find every consequence 

bloodied and hung this time over the fence and I need help getting back to the offense

Nodding between belligerence and my vigilance—

the pleasures of sweet, sweet ignorance 

Losing my sheep every now and again

You had me at you skin, 24

Years running from the taste of Ambien--

21-- the realism comes 

The back of my tongue 

Will be morning breath

You had me at you skin

21 years running from 

the taste of Ambien, 

21--

The realism comes.  

The taste on my tongue will be my last little death

He left me dawning

He left me dawning

Why do you always watch as I’m falling asleep?

He left me dawning

You left me

I hate to say it but 

I hate a state of innocents ‘cause 

Your pretty little city’s in my thoughts (too much)

If it weren’t just for our cognitive dissonance and 

half the country left for me to cross, 

Then I wouldn’t have regret the last months of my life– 

Stuck inside 

Stuck on your mind 

Stuck in the seventh place in line

If I have to be your sage, 

I’ll do anything to stay;

But, I still won’t have the money or the time

I’ll be your designated driver ‘til I end up there with you. 

And those six brunettes in front of me will never even have to think to move. 

And when the traffic stops and goes,

Whatever happens on that road

Will be

And even though I’m stagnant and unknown, 

One day that’ll be me

I hate to say it but 

I wish you were still innocent –

Like a deer in my headlights

Now you’re tainted with disdain of student citizens 

You know I could never be even if I could’ve tried 

And I wouldn’t have regret the last months of my life 

Stuck misguided by the unrequited 

And the shapes inside your mouth

And I’ll surely keep my eyes on your messes at all times 

If it makes me the one you’d be lost without

I’ll be your designated driver ‘til I end up there with you. 

And those six brunettes in front of me will never even have to think to move. 

And when the traffic stops and goes 

Whatever happens on that road 

Will be.

And even though I’m stagnant and unknown 

One day that’ll be me

You and I were never meant to keep some kind of argument going for the rest of our lives

You and I were never meant to keep some kind of argument over the distance and the divide

You and I were never meant, but distance is irrelevant if you won’t even give me the time

You and I were never meant

No, you and I were never meant

But I don’t have the guts to be the first to say goodbye

Goodbye.

It's been almost a year now

Since I've made it clear how 

Wicked you are 

Like my Moriarty 

Your evil is starting 

To bore into my heart 

Thinking about how now it's someday 

You're away and drinking your Earl Grey 

On a street I don't know the name of 

Girls in a-line dresses 

Making marks on you and messes

I could never make with my empire-waisted love

Eleanor

Oh miss Eleanor 

How can I get to you 

If not poison or chalk on the floor 

Miss Eleanor 

Miss Eleanor 

I still treasure your letters 

That make English sound better than symphonies I know 

Still a hopeless romantic 

Who plays tricks with semantics

Despite my empty hope 

Thinking about how now it's someday 

And I prepared for this in some ways 

But I still can't believe you're somehow gone 

With a girl in an a-line dress 

Who could never make quite the mess 

That I could make with my empire-waisted love 

Eleanor

Oh miss Eleanor 

How can I get to you 

If not poison or chalk on the floor 

Miss Eleanor 

Miss Eleanor

I've been studying my ciphers

Still I forget to read between the lines

And though you claim your motive's concrete

I can sense the hidden deceit 

In the mysteries you write 

Eleanor 

How can I get to you 

If not poison or chalk on the floor 

Miss Eleanor 

I just want to know that you loved me before 

I just want to know that you loved me at all before 

All before 

Eleanor 

Love me 

Today our sun is claiming every hidden space. 

Deprived of all rest says last night I left my mouth’s mistake.

The heater is on,

And the windows need a cleaning, 

And my mother won’t even speak my name. 

I’m a betrayer and a traitor to the trade- 

I read and I hope 

Believable tropes will

Scope my morningscape.  

It would be such a shame if we interpreted this 

Different ways. 

It’s one of those things where I don’t want to cause exhaustion but to fault me for exalting is just salt in fairness 

Blame it on descensions, lost dimensions, and you questioning my questions, or you could just care less 

Why don't you feel the same? 

Oh, I know you would if you wanted 

But you’re too good to be honest 

Think you owe me a solid to fake your own signs?

Why don’t you feel the same? 

Oh, even with all my standards 

I’m here looking for answers 

In the universe crawling 

Itself into straight lines

I cannot tell if I am unwell or if this allergy

To a duo’s pseudo symbols or to easy fallacies 

Is somatic or just challenges the end of you and me 

If I lie–  is that cheating? 

The heater is on and the windows need a cleaning 

And I’m stuck in the place where we just keep on meeting

Why am I reading 

Into things I still don’t know how to read- 

And I have trouble even believing? 

Why don’t you feel the same?  

Oh, I know you would if you wanted

But you’re too good for honest

Think you owe me a solid to fake your own signs?

Why don’t you feel the same? 

Oh, you could make this so easy 

Got me semi-intrigued in 

The systems you’re leading–

This plan that you’ve devised 

I hope that she treats you right 

I hope that your stars align 

I hope that your scores online compatibility-wise are higher than mine were. 

Wouldn’t that be nice?

I just want a statistic– 

Something scientific– 

Would that be alright with you?

Is that something that you can do?

Hypocriticism. 

Systems spitting bliss into seasonal depression and obsession with analysis. 

Binary expressions affecting texts, suggesting scripts. 

Pretension presenting attention on the grid. 

I can admit I’m a bit of an addict.

Can’t help but submit to the bit and stay static 

Or chat in passing how I tend to reminisce on the antithesis of what’s kicking the kids

But, I could be convinced to give into a click-by-click kind of 

acquittance, 

the deliberate repeat and rinse– 

It’s too much to just sit and exist. 

Can I just pull it back a little?

Pull all my cards out of the middle? 

Is It worth the less intense nonsensical connection?

Digital riddles? 

I’ll just skate under the surface 

Just a few steps out of service– 

Or why’d I purchase all my cool ringtones

On my new flip phone 

If not form some kind of purpose?

So I’m conflicted– 

Being parasitically afflicted and 

Dissed by my virtual assistant–

Flirting with permission from   

pixelated encrypted prescriptions. 

But I could be convinced that somebody else was the genius. 

Somebody’s getting rich quick from my perpetual lovesickness. 

Can I just pull it back a little?

Pull all my cards out of the middle? 

Is It worth the less intense nonsensical connection?

Digital riddles? 

I’ll just skate under the surface 

Just a few steps out of service– 

Or why’d I purchase all my cool ringtones

On my new flip phone 

If not form some kind of purpose?

Can I just pull it back– 

Take my cards out of– 

Is it worth all the computation hesitation? 

Just a few steps out– 

Just to skate under– 

Why’d I purchase all that? 

Just to make it work? 

Just to make it work? 

Just to make it work? 

Want to make it work. 

Lips around the faucet

Judging by the steam

It's getting hotter and hotter

Still, I've gotta be the only one you've ever made this clean

So why do I feel like a mock daughter

Drinking all the bathwater I can drink

They float me like an altar

They're throating what you taunt out

Unsanctioned sinks

Father Father Father

Are you coming down to check on me

Father Father Father

Could I ever do enough

Father Father Father

Starting to believe that I'm just an effigy

Father Father Father

Not ready for your love

Not ready for your love

Not ready for your love

Don't you keep that jaw shut

Pursing's to abet

Cuz the others will follow and falter

In the ways I've started to rebel and vet

I wonder if you are an imposter

And why I haven't heard them swallowing yet

You let them call themselves Martyrs

And you never check if their tongues are wet

Father Father Father

Are you coming down to check on me?

Father Father Father

Could I ever do enough?

Father Father Father

You're proving to me that I'm just an effigy

Father Father Father

Not ready for the love

Not ready for the love

Not ready for the love

Drinking with the dogs or drinking from the pipes

Darling ain't the struggle divine

Drinking to the dogma

They all watch and waste the wine

Appease and please and pleasure if you're willing

Sweetheart, swallow everything they're spilling

Father Father Father

Father Father Father

Nothing else is going down

Father Father Father

I'm dousing inside out

I close my lips, nobody will know

Slowly, father, I can burn alone

Under that Fig Tree

That grown-ups

Warn their children of

My mother was raised up

Taking straight from the dirt

Unburying ribbons

And buttons

Her mother kept in the mud

Unbothered

By the buds that hung above her

When she was tall enough

To stand and stick out her tongue

My mother bit down

And practiced ballet

Raising her brother, with another to come

Studying Matisse and Monet

She never stopped to choose what fruit to taste

She never stop to choose one fruit to take

Detouring to DC

And Bali

And changing her name

My mother got sunstroke

On the weekends she'd like to forget

Went and got married and moved to the city after dodging the men who just wanted her games

And now she's standing with her daughter

Doubting the purpose of any of it

When she was tall enough

To stand and stick out her tongue

My mother bit down

And practiced ballet

Raising her brother, with another to come

Studying Matisse and Monet

She never stopped to choose what fruit to taste

She never stopped to choose one fruit to take

Running back to the roots of her ruins

Of the woman she's grown up to be

Counting the battles she keeps swearing she's losing

by not choosing before she had me

And now she's watching me doing the same thing

Crawling out from under that tree

And now I'm tall enough

To stand and stick out my tongue

Her daughter bit down

And practiced ballet

Raising my brothers 

And others will come

Studying Matisse and Monet

I'll never stop to choose what fruit to taste

And never stop to choose one fruit to take

I was born after two decades of living babe
I was sure I wasn't made to be forgiven babe
Or forgiving 'cause I'm raised on delusion and superstition babe
But now that you can reach me teach me Motherly affection and decision babe

And rock me so
I know I've grown

And touch me
Cross your heart and swear you're good
Promise me all flesh and blood
And leave your lines in tens
And hold me
Like I'm a friend of yours
Without degrees or metaphors
Learn me like I'm one of them

Hush love
Keep your sentences in whispering condition babe
Delicately poised between tradition and our collision babe
See I'm smiling - I've only known illusions and derision babe
As long as you will hide me
Guide me with a reckless protection and precision babe

And rock me so

I know I've grown

Touch me
Cross your heart and swear you're good
Promise me all flesh and blood
And leave your lines in tens
And hold me
Like I'm a friend of yours
Without degrees or metaphors
Learn me like I'm one of them

And as bleak as it seems
There's something that reads so 

Right
About facing the gallows together at the end of the night

I could dance

On the top of a van 

In a storm in the desert 

Inhaling the sand 

Or I could be 

In a club after 3 

In the middle of the summer 

With restricted AC 

Or I could choose 

A lazy afternoon in the shade 

Shoot the blues 

With a man who’s too 

Young for his age

Cancel my plans 

To take advice and a hand 

From a nice old man 

On roller skates

He’s alright

Because he’s 85 

And I’m not as fond of what I should be 

At 21 

He’s the son of a gun for me 

I could have woes about my shoes and my clothes 

And be so late to the party that I don’t want to go or 

I could lie about the music I don’t like 

And scream it out the car window on the passenger side 

Or I could go where I will dress up and know that we look like the perfect couple 

Listen to standards, eat hard, candy, and answer every daily double 

He’s all right 

Because he’s 85 

And I’m not as fond of what I should be

At 21 

He’s the son of a gun for me

He could die on his daily ride 

But at least he is doing what makes him happy 

Through the pearly gates 

On his roller skates he’ll be

I could sit and cry 

Over someone all night 

Who didn’t treat me right 

And ran off after our first fight

Or I could visit my guy 

In the ground where he lies 

And meet his grandson one night 

Who just might be my type 

He’s alright

Cuz he’s not 85 

And he’s not as fond of what he should be 

And he’s heaven sent 

From my man he’s meant for me 

Yeah he might be alright 

Yeah it might be just fine 

For me