By Jacquelyn Benson
Date: 5 May 1998

Mayday

You know my face. 
     You know my name. 
     So why can't you see how much I want you? 
     You touch my shoulder and my pulse goes up. 
     You walk down the hall holding hands with that bitch, 
     That sweet little bitch I wave to in the hall 
     Except when she's with you 
     And all I can see are your hands 
     Together. 
     Aren't mine good enough? 
     The wrong color nail polish, perhaps, 
     Then would you want me? 
     I'm hiding right in front of you 
     With a desert in my throat and a moor in my heart, 
     A vast, lonely landscape where I stand alone. 
     No one can hear me screaming. 
     You can't hear me screaming 
     And it feels good 
     When the rain comes 
     Because I can't see you through the rain. 
     You're not laid bare in front of me like in the sun, 
     Holding that bitch's hand. 
     I want you to hate me. 
     I want you to hate me, 
     To kill me, to slap me, to push me, scream at me, cry for me, feel for me. 
     Not a wave in the hall. 
     Not a passing conversation 
     About Dollar Bill or Willie Waffle. 
     I want you to stand with me in the rain 
     And tell me how much you hate sunny days too, 
     As much as you hate me or love me or fear me 
     With your innocent perversion 
     And that bitch on your arm. 
     Do you want her? 
     She wants you 
     Like a big carnival prize. 
     Do you want me? 
     I want you 
     Like a knife to the gut and thorns in my palms. 
     Maybe there'll always be time for a knife to the gut, 
     But I want your thorns 
     Your rose and your thorns 
     Together in my hand. 
     We'd burn up together 
     In the rain, 
     Hands together, 
     Where the bitch and the sun can never reach us.