Subtractive Philosophy

My brother's gone to the movies and I'm curling up to watch the small screen. The homemade song on the radio made me cry because I'm afraid there's only one reason I love what I say I do.

I'm sleeping and stapling, stalling, playing tennis with Jenni until it all goes away. The clouds are rolling in again. All the trees are waiting until they outgrow the sidewalks or until someone comes to cut them down.

The actor playing the newsman reminds me of the boy I passed up. I've been in love for so long it's breaking me to pieces. I should be swimming but I'm wearing boys' track shoes with the spikes off. My imaginary friend is a skinny blonde Sebastian I'll never meet.

The only place I've seen that name is on a tombstone. I can't decide if I ought to buy black or gold or boots or the same shoes again. Can I tell you, can I show you, will you understand? No? Well, I didn't think so, and it won't hurt you, anyway.

Secretly

By the little are equal to the large we don't mean the large are the same as the small. You you think I'm going to believe in you when you're as tasteless as all that?

Get ready to hew to the labels, sew to the styles. I regard tops and bottoms like personalities, press and hang. Am I better than the last? Would I have found you if I had walked some other way?

Trust your new muses, darling, and there you go. You're off, dirty hair and clean dress, younger and older, fatter and thinner.

I love her oldest clothes, those that still smell of sweaters. She was my reassurance. She's more an indulgence these days, and smells like blonde brownies.

But on we go. Tell me again what you told me and this time I won't call for my line. I'll tell you you're the one I want. I didn't and I regret having to regret it and I'm so very sorry.

I can feel the end of the summer inspiration coming on like the chill. Rain in the rural is for the grain and the cotton and sun in the city is for me.

She had a name, she had a spirit, she had a line in the play if you waited to hear it
But the master of disguises, her demise was her design, they said
-Sunset Rubdown, "The Mending of the Gown"

Cruella de Vil

You can see the blue in her veins just like the red in her hair. Here's a sachet of energy, renewal, and protection for her skin. I wish it worked on the rest of me.

I overheard her voice singing. Does it not count because it was amplified? Is it real if it was only on a screen? Is it over because no one told me?

I went to listen to bad teen poetry instead. Sex, drugs, drama, oh my! We're young and we have bright futures but we're cutting and fucking and starving and smoking and killing ourselves and reading thesauruses trying to make it obscure like it means something. It hasn't changed me.

It didn't fool me, either - it just makes me look like one. I'm an outsider. My ticket's expired and now I can't go back. Of course it changed the day you sorted out his change into the rest. It wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't the only one. I'm cozy in fur, Playboy in 1964, smart of course but weak and lonely.

I've seen the company you keep,
You're on the sofa hidden deep
While on the telly Sid James speaks
To you like God

You're always looking for a sign,
But boy you blow it every time
You hear a voice begin to speak
You ignore it and go softly to sleep
- Belle & Sebastian, "Put The Book Back On The Shelf"