Lay Me Down - new song lyrics
-A snapshot of life from last fall

I wrote this song the week before my hysterectomy this past November. I had been sick for so long, and not even really taking stock to realize how sick I was. When the results of my biopsy came back as pre-cancerous, my doctor recommended the hysterectomy. (FYI - all is fine, they found nothing!!) Then Diabetes struck - with a vengeance!  And they realized they couldn't operate on me until I got it under control. The drastic change in my diet and the new medications had me walking (and feeling) like an old woman! And then, my hair started falling out. Thankfully, most of it is coming back, so you really can't tell, but I was so upset by this, feeling that I was no longer desirable, or even a woman. I was losing my sense of self. I was so sick, all the time, and still trying to manage my little store, and trying to be there for my family, and letting almost everyone down because I was too weak to do anything about the day-to-day demands I have placed on myself. Tom tried to help, but I wondered how much of my self as a woman was bound up in my ability to have children - even if I wasn't planning on having any more. I worried that I may not survive this. I worried about the way my children would be affected, if I didn't. And I wanted to be heard. For Tom to know how much I love him, and wanted to be all of the things I may not be able to be anymore. So many thoughts flying through my head, and they just came out like this.




Lay Me Down

When it rains
Let it pour
When the salt on our skin can't be tasted again
I am yours
And I have promised you everything I have been given, and will
But I am mired by circumstance, broken, bleeding and still

Lay me down
On your altar
And cut away my pride
Leave me nothing
But the memory
Of how you felt inside
For it's only in the mourning
As I gather up my leaves
I am haunted by the promises
Whispered in the trees

I have lost
A piece of myself
It was waiting there, useless and beautiful
Left on a shelf
And I could fill it with ribbons and laurels and longing and dreams
But there is no one around me to mourn this, and what it all means

Lay me down
On the water
Let the salt touch my tongue
Let me drink
From your longing
For what can't be undone
For it's only in the moonlight
As I'm drifting out to sea
I am born now, as a siren
For no land I can see

All I've done
Is all that I am
I'm rejoiced and ashamed, and afraid
I am only a man
I have fear
But I am strong
And the days 'till the moment of reckoning aren't so long

Lay me down
In your arms now
As my feathers fall like rain
I am broken
By my vanity
Your offerings, and your pain
But it's only in the moment
That I leave you on this plane
I will live here for a thousand years
And wait for you again
I will live here for a thousand years
And wait for you again

-Carla