3:15 p.m. - 04/05/02
that's the sound of my brain. cracking. 2
I wrote this just now while I was biting my nails trying to read the response to an e-mail I wanted to forget I'd written. (Unfortunately, the recipient didn't know this, so...they wrote me back.) And as it turns out, it was a really nice letter, and for a second, I had this thought like "maybe we'll become really good friends and in 20 yrs will laugh about how we met because I freaked out and wrote this person I didn't even know"...and then I realized Harriet would be wrong (about something else) then, and I wanted it even more.
So yes, this is new, and I guess I don't need to say to anyone who's ever written - there is a reason infants don't speak so quickly as poems.
*
I really would prefer you didn't clap for me
I really would prefer you just sat, silently
blinking at the curtain as it slips to the floor
and me and my little microphone aren't near you anymore
I really would prefer to hear you grumble up the aisles
if you pass me on the street, no false hello, no bright, pinched smiles
I really would prefer you let the door close on a hush
tell me, really, really, really
am I asking you that much?
please don't applaud
I really would enjoy it if you spit gum out on your chair
if you made inappropriate phone calls & talked though no one's there
I really would exalt you if you left me, standing, cold
with no one to buy tickets or support me when I'm old - please don't applaud
and really- if you care, drop your program on the stair
leave me sitting here, washing the tomato from my hair
if you think anything of me at all, let me thank you in advance
because clapping's two hands slapping
and you will get the chance to not applaud.
what it comes down to is that moment when the microphone falls flat
static slipping through the stage door, you and I just where we're at
if you applaud: I have to wonder, do you know what I'm about?
if you applaud, I have to worry, have those hands (also) found me out?
please don't applaud.
*
sometimes...when I write lyrics- I wish I were a small-boned boy with blue eyes and blond hair- a boy with this golden girl-melting voice and a crazy-ass talent for the guitar, so that I wouldn't have to worry about what I was saying, or the opinion of my hormone-crazed fans...
chord
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