In Answer - Monica Richards

I have heard recent knockings and wondered aloud in song

The Worth of those years as bound Inspiration

I’ll speak the truth though it may be hard to hear it

That part of me, that lithe and fierce spirit

Made prisoner yet molded in my image

Choose, Fate, choose: Mother or Lover, Muse or Martyr

Tenderest to those who won’t own me

Singing on for another generation

Traded for a life turned upside-down

I can no longer be the captured Symbol

The personal Siren shining like freedom

Stalked by silent unforgiving reflections

Choose, Fate, choose: Lover or Martyr, Muse or Mother

My head full of heat from one hour’s sleep

Lost in the shine of the moment

In this moment — there is love

And nothing but this moment matters

And I touch all the eyes that know who I am and where we began

Desiring to save, resigned to their delusions

Attracting their secrets and deepest wishes

Imagine the taste of a heart bled to dust

Choose, Sister, choose: Mother or Lover, Muse or Martyr

Umb to talons in my creations

From which unknown imaginations

Expect the Song to be the Human./p

I can no longer be the captured Symbol

Conjuring their embrace and feverish whispers

Repeating Youth’s passions and locked-lust nightmares

Choose, Sister, choose: Mother or Martyr, Muse or Lover

My head full of heat from one hour’s sleep

Found in the shine of the moment

In this moment — there is love

And nothing but this moment matters

As I take them all to a place where everything makes sense again

And all those that agree

And all those if they please

Can bring themselves to love

And lay their hands upon me

And lay their hands upon me