I Trap You - Kate Tempest, Kae Tempest

Love is a self-made thing

I am free

I stare at the air and I see patterns

And your name is a song in my chest

The taste is metallic

How many billions walk this planet?

I feel them, I feel them

You show me my mass

Love is an endless sky

An endless cliché that imagines itself to be deep revelation

An open face, n open palm, n open plain

All open

The more that we close it the less that we know it

And just 'cause I know it

Don’t mean I know how to show it

They’re taking everything from us and telling us nothing is ours

But here we are, dancing

You make me a microscope

You make me a map

I called it «love,» I should have called it «trap»

«I trap you,» I should have said tenderly

At the end of a long day

While we kept each other desperately stagnant

«I trap you so much»

Yes, I want you to be happy, but don’t threaten my happiness

Can’t you see I’m walking this threadbare tightrope?

Made out of dental floss stitched together with strands of tobacco and dog hair

And it stretches between two precious fantasies

My fantasy of me and my fantasy of you

And beneath, in raging red chopped razor teeth states of fury

Are all my insecurities

And all the little lies I like to tell myself

And every other reason that I can’t see the truth

«I trap you so much!»

I should have whispered in your ear as we fell asleep

Bodies unbound, sheets soaked, hearts hammering

If I see it clear, will it stay clear?

Will it be clear when you’re here?

I don’t want fear, I don’t want greed

I want freedom, I want to be free

I want you to be free, I want to nourish

I don’t want to feed like some ravenous mouth

With no guts, only greed, endless appetite

Need, need, need

You can’t free me, I free me, I breathe

If I am in pieces, is it easier to see?

I think I am whole now

I think I am more whole

But I still check my phone 17 times a minute

To see if you called and I missed it

Trap

Love is a self-made thing

Love is a self-made trap