Shawn Franco Poetry

Being Right For You (Song Lyrics)


I’m learning how to read your eyes.
In your quietest breaths you’re holding back sighs.
You often create monsters inside of my light.
I can’t blame you baby, I see things from your side.

I’m working on being right for you, hold tight.
It’s gonna take time.

Sleep comes so smooth when I hold you close.
In the mornings I smell your scent on my clothes.
And most of my shirts now know you and I both.
I’d be lying if I said I like sleeping alone.

I’m working on being right for you, hold tight.
It’s gonna take time.

And I’m going to show you that I’ve kissed my monsters goodbye.
And I’ll find my ways to be the best thing for you.
Don’t push me away.
Don’t push me away.




Shawn Franco

Music: “Freedom Blade” by TWDY


Sledgehammer


You painted me in an orchard in the hide away parts of your dreams.
It’s where you always find me when you’re running away
from the feeling of wanting to let go
because damn it, you don’t wanna let go.
You didn’t wanna believe in letting go.
But damn, girl.
Lately you’ve been adding more layers
to the wall that you started putting up.
I hate to be sledgehammer,
but I already promised myself
that I’d find every way possible to get through them
and so far,
the softer ways before kept getting harder
to now finding me here like this.

So find a way to forgive yourself for being bitter
at any attempt I had to make this better.
I can’t wait for too long without panicking in my own insecurities,
I’m just being honest so please be understanding.
I’m not good at not needing you yet.

I haven’t worked on standing still through being worried.
You’re a church on fire
in the hope that I pried open,
desperate to save myself inside.
I’d mistaken what it meant to save myself inside.
Sometimes we force ourselves to believe in things
that never promised to have a promise.

We both found that the hardest part of letting go
is convincing yourself to convince yourself
in being ready to be ready.

So, I cant blame you for finding your way
to maybe, just maybe being ready.
But before you actually let go,
please remember why you ever held on in the first place
with such steady hands.
I was never able to even forget about my reasons for holding on
with such steady heads
I found everything I believed in
inside the steeples of your eyes.
Just keep me locked in your assurance
because goddamn,
I need you so bad right now to believe in me.
It’s the whole reason I even worked on believing in myself.

In the center storm of your delusion,
you were the only thing I believed in.
I’m still trying to convince myself that there’s a reason for letting go.
But, I don’t wanna go through fixing myself after finally letting go.

Last night, I found you sleeping like a December river.
Your side, waving like an atlantic tide.
You were a somber breath wrapped around prayer at midnight.
A silhouette trembling between alleyways in Bronx.
I heard you call me
from your hideaway orchard you painted me inside.
You stole me from my sleep
but I’ve been awake
since the first sirens that went off in your I’m okays.
I’ve been listening through your I’m okays
at the broken record repeating the same lines
in your body’s stuttered language.

I’m chasing your ghost with full solace that I’ll catch you.
I swear that I’ll catch you.
We both dreamed that I would.




Shawn Franco

Music: “The Ugly Fact of Life” by Explosions in the Sky


I’m Not Asking You to Save Me


To whom ever she may be, this is an open letter to the next girl I might love.



Dear Open Arm Benevolent,



Don’t be surprised at all the sewage in my blood.

I carry a body full of famine

of which I haven’t been fully cured from.

The scarecrows in my love
never really worked too well.

And now, I’m trying to hide my past mistakes

underneath my best intentions.

I’ve become so skilled

at painting joy across my face

but my smile is a cemetery I use
to bury all the skeletons I could not get rid of.


So please,
don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m free of ghosts

when I’m actually trying to push them away

with my laughter.


I carry splinters in my breathing

and I swear my ribcage shakes heavier
than a fear filled prayer in the dark.

So when I say your name,

forgive me if it sounds like the hiccups in my pulse,

the earthquakes along my spine,

the monsters in my throat.

My throat 
is full
 of too many bad things that I wish I never said.

Of the music I wish I spoke

and of the brittle walls I wish I didn’t.

Because every sanctuary

that I ever built with words

crumbled and turned to dust.



So can you find me through my sandstorm?

Can you hold me as a battle wound?

Just wear me proudly

even though I might not be pretty.

I know I’ve kissed a lot of shrapnel 
and I’ll admit

that most days it makes me bitter.

And I’ll admit 
that baby,
don’t think that you can save me

by wrapping your arms around me

because for so long,

I pushed away all the girls I could’ve loved.

And I replaced them for just ones that I know I never would
And every lovemark that I ever left on their necks

was a tattoo that said,

I
 was here.

And thank you for tasting sweet

but to be honest

thats all I really wanted

and I wish that could feel the least bit sorry

that I have no intention on staying.

But I always get burned after this.

So understand
 that this letter is my honesty

that I’m willing to write along the insides of your wrists.

Place your lips to the cinder

of all the shame that stained me.

Tell me 
that through all of my inflictions 
you still see me

as gorgeous

as a glass collarbone.

As loud
as my butterfly wings

cracking when they dance
out of my chrysalis.

Kiss me furiously against the torso of bricks.

I swear

I’m capable of being the softest touch off your tongue.

Lighting your mouth full

of everything 
I’ve been too hard hearted to say.


I’m not asking you to save me.

I finally did that myself when I realized
you won’t show up until I did.
And it’s my own damn fault I lost myself

inside my self inflicted love suicide attempt.

I just need you to see me
 for who I am.

A miraculously fixed,
 once foolish disaster.


I finally woke up

and scraped the nightmares out from inside me.

So you…

you sacred dreamcatcher

with your innocent bravery.

Just keep me still

inside the framework of your forgiveness.

I swear

I’m on the right side of letting go.

I swear

that it’s finally safe to love me.

It just took me so long to realize

that sometimes 
the biggest things we push so far away

are really the things we want so hard

to be able to just fall safely into.




Shawn Franco

Music: “sur le fil” by Yann Tiersen


To Find You Beneath the North Star: Version 2

Tonight, you’ve driven me desolate,

empty of tiring fumes,

slumbering spells that find me each evening,

silver in brilliant comfort.


Tonight, you’ve driven me to be hanging conscious,

singing with battered sanity in restless affliction

begging and most desperate for affirmation.

To let go of this infirmity easily,
is mad to even think of.


Tired junkies wander outside
through my street in delusive utopia,

shattered teeth,
and full dialect of delirious hobo tongue,

reckless for a warming fix.

And you, you perfect heroin,
you’ve driven me to fall the same.

You’ve injected too much of your white ghost into my veins.

So can you blame me in the slightest for being irritable
at not having you breathing at my neck?

For not smiling at me in the sleek hands of morning
after a pulse detonating night.
Where we painted our passion across the bedroom air,
beneath the star illuminated sky
in which we both connected zodiacs
to find each other compatible.



I found dopamine between your thighs.

I felt my name trembling between your lips.

I heard flutes beckoning me in your every honest breath.



Lately, you’ve displayed hollow vessels,
drained of the whispering tides I need to keep me cradled.

You’ve turned my arms into an abandoned sanctuary,

squandering somewhere off inside your feathered memory

but inside the iron picture frame of my faith.



Every lover I’ve had before you
was a needless fix I fucked loveless beneath the lawless western night,
starless skies killed off by the mask of city lights
with my conscience somewhere off outside my errant grip,
my careless hands.

But you, you are the only one I’ve ever meant every thrust,
every word, and every holy act I gave.


Tonight, you’ve driven me between contemplating
on anchoring my efforts to keep you

and surrendering to your ready to set sails,
numbing all of my senses as you’re blinked into the horizon.


I’m laying in this lonely bedroom,
offering my skull to drear recollections of you beside me,
soaking in harmonious sleep after you loved to love me.

I’m swallowing the locusts that were caught inside the fields
of my grandest solidity
where I ran with torn shins and swollen kneecaps to find you.

No one
has heard the symphony of fresh tenor beneath my smile except you.

Both sides of my lips rise each morning with you,
where you greet me the same.

Tonight, I’ll sleep until the murmuring birds of dawn
wake me with their delicate notes,
their penny flute ballads,

I’ll wake with you in the very center flame of my faith,

kissing the candle flame back to an animate flicker
to remind me
that what we were

is still who we are.



You’re golden beneath the sunrise

and still golden above the sunset.

You’re the North Star I’ll believe in

to lean forth my truest aim




Shawn Franco