By Megs
Date: 16 June 2000

Strings of Thoughts like Imitation Pearls

Wondering where the answers are
Picking apart some of Bartlett's most familiar quotations
Country song lyrics
and fortune cookie prophecies
Expecting to find the key to you among the ruins
and rusty debris
of everyone who has hurt you
I've tried to stand the test
fill in the circles completely and darkly and wholly
and not color outside the lines
and balance on the tightrope
you have made of my heartstrings
pulled tight
hung over
with a shot glass full of instability
and unsent notes asking where we stand
Four chances
that you might have called
logged on my answering machine
but I never get the message
Is the darkest hour for us the one before the dawn
when we wake up beside each other finally?
or is our partly cloudy existence only a preface to the storm?
None of this crosses my mind much
when I curl my hair around my face
trying to duplicate the way it looked the day you complimented me
and I play the lyrics to our song
(that you aren't even aware of)
over and over like a mantra
though I doubt my entire Maybelline arsenal
could recreate me into
what you need.

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