Burning
And you wonder if you can write your body
And you find yourself so crazy in love that
you write hundreds of poems
And you write a poem that gets a man fired
And you find yourself weeping at 70 miles an hour
And music makes you weep
And sometimes how you "wish you were a girl
again -- "wild and happy and free"
And you have had your worst day and your best day
on the same day of your life
And you have been at the top of your class
And you've felt like writing in blackspeak, so you did
And you want something nobody can give you
And you lie in bed in the middle of the day
searching the ceiling for answers
and all you find are cobwebs and fingerprints
And you want so hard to make some kind of connection
and yet you can't touch people
And you're not allowed to love more than one man at a
time
And you learn that loving is a crime
And you read a book a week for 3 years straight
all the classics - philosophers upon historians upon
poets upon anthropologists upon theologians upon
novelists and you feel more desperate than before
And you are always hungry
And there is never enough time or enough love
And you can never get enough blue sky
or thunderstorms
and hail always makes people stop and look
And you read so many things you've never read before--
God is dead and all that is solid melts into air and as
once the winged energy of delight and I am a sick,
sick man and the hidden hands of laissez-faire and
the iron cage and follow your bliss and I dun been tuh
heaven and back
And you learn how to learn just by observing
You watch bluejays and blackbirds and spiders
And you feel like your senses have been deadened
And someone tells you you're like a raw nerve
And you say that if you do nothing else in your life
at least you have loved passionately and been loved
passionately
And you want more than anything else to make a
difference
And you find yourself paralyzed and trapped
And the newspaper says people lie when they tell
women the world is their oyster
And Virginia Woolf said in order to write well
you must first burn up all your anger and grief
And I am trying to burn my house down
but have found it's made of asbestos
And you find yourself so crazy in love that
you write hundreds of poems
And you write a poem that gets a man fired
And you find yourself weeping at 70 miles an hour
And music makes you weep
And sometimes how you "wish you were a girl
again -- "wild and happy and free"
And you have had your worst day and your best day
on the same day of your life
And you have been at the top of your class
And you've felt like writing in blackspeak, so you did
And you want something nobody can give you
And you lie in bed in the middle of the day
searching the ceiling for answers
and all you find are cobwebs and fingerprints
And you want so hard to make some kind of connection
and yet you can't touch people
And you're not allowed to love more than one man at a
time
And you learn that loving is a crime
And you read a book a week for 3 years straight
all the classics - philosophers upon historians upon
poets upon anthropologists upon theologians upon
novelists and you feel more desperate than before
And you are always hungry
And there is never enough time or enough love
And you can never get enough blue sky
or thunderstorms
and hail always makes people stop and look
And you read so many things you've never read before--
God is dead and all that is solid melts into air and as
once the winged energy of delight and I am a sick,
sick man and the hidden hands of laissez-faire and
the iron cage and follow your bliss and I dun been tuh
heaven and back
And you learn how to learn just by observing
You watch bluejays and blackbirds and spiders
And you feel like your senses have been deadened
And someone tells you you're like a raw nerve
And you say that if you do nothing else in your life
at least you have loved passionately and been loved
passionately
And you want more than anything else to make a
difference
And you find yourself paralyzed and trapped
And the newspaper says people lie when they tell
women the world is their oyster
And Virginia Woolf said in order to write well
you must first burn up all your anger and grief
And I am trying to burn my house down
but have found it's made of asbestos