(Shannon Wilsey On The) Starry Stairs

They asked for more

What do you think this fan club is for?

I slithered up each rose corridor

I kept a warm, safe place at my core

Before I lost it

They asked fo blood

What do you think this woman is made of?

I stuck a small, thin pin in my thumb

They dreamt a low, long line to be crossed

And I crossed it

I'm alive,

But a different kind of alive

Than the way I used to be

I retire

To a split white smile to be seen

In some old stag magazine

And these girl's eyes

When they were roughly wrenched open, I

Could see a starry stair up your thigh

You hid behind your hair

Oh, but I saw you smiling

While all these guys

All these curious sets of eyes

Safe behind a TV screen

I let them pry

Pick apart and hang up to dry

Almost every piece of me

(If you don't love me, I'm sorry)

Oh, what a trip

Oh, what a shimmering silver ship

Oh, what a hot half-life I half-lived

And the stripes and stars,

How they stripped

Off of the siding

When my life ripped

Off from the part that played as a kid

Into the part that blazed through your lids

To find a warm, safe place

And to sit curled up inside it

So here's goodbye

From the part that's staying behind

To the part that has to leave

To the sublime

Lips that were never spoiled by a line

To the face inside of the beam

Who wasn't me