I Don't Like Myself

I don't like myself
When I cry too much in my work
or I play too much the innocent

I live in life knowing
I'm a grown woman
and sure when I'm taken by surprise I act in my
reprised role: a child with pig tails hangin' low
down to my toes, cryin' cryin' but the blues don't leave me
no, not now, not yet or through the back door.

I don't like myself so serious and so
urgent with fear or when I become a
stranger to myself...

I live in life knowing
I can only get away with
so much cat and mouse or
being a hamster in a mill
Thinkin' of ways to trick myself to loving me
or perhaps you loving me instead

I don't like myself so selfish and so cold
So cruel and humorless

I live to tell stories and to
help my self to more
As I feed my thoughts and dreams
with more than petty grief

Grief so deep
Fear so strong
Love so weak
Beauty so tired of being beauty
and sometimes silence - shit even fire tires
at the site of me

I don't like myself so pale and sunless
or blue without passion
or red without heat
Just red with anxiety and fear
and any other creature creeping through my soul

I'd spoil myself rotten if I knew how
I'd speak a verse by the best versed poet
dead or alive
I just don't like myself enough
You must feel the same
as I, when cold is colder than
winter, deep below iced waters

I don't like myself and I'm sure
you'd agree- that person that lives in you
has full control of you
BUT
That's of course unless
you take that knife
that lives so close to your feet (on dirty grounds)
and cut and cut
And cut it out!