1. |
Referencing
01:28
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opening up so much just to close up again
fought for seven straight days with no battle to win
except one with myself, battered horns and bowed strings
not sure if I was saying much of anything.
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2. |
Running
03:18
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just in case somehow this late at night, we may meet
I take the long way around the lake and use the darker streets
you're halfway between where I am and the road stops
turning to gravel, loosening, where you are, I am not
because that's the way we like it, giving the air bags breathing room
in case they go off, safe from being too soon
because they'd never go off later, too proud, and too set
in finding the things we lost soon after we first met
each other in way outside of sense
sitting together with hands held becoming sitting on fences.
it doesn't matter, we're drunk and finding new things
and like kite strings we hope that they'll be more receptive to
hands biting into
a modern american waterloo.
ambushed by remembering the fact that I'm forgetting
who really made my choices, who took a pen to this wrinkled map
who camouflaged the 'x' as if to hide the fact
that there is something here even if my eyes don't see it
and if you're looking for somewhere to stuff your flame, oh I'd be glad to be it.
burning in a sense that molecules had first decided to be,
I'll be no loss of evidence, fire's been known to up and die in me.
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3. |
Ridiculous
03:24
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let me see your big hands holding big hearts slipping out
Ventricles for finger fucking, blacking out the doubt
Like bubbles underwater, air bubbles in my blood stream
Mouth against the lacerations, don't breathe, don't leave
me here, bones hiding too far under skin and hair,
dusting for fingerprints on your bare back, I was never there
Holding me off with the knowledge things are better
when you're taking off your sweater, ignoring the colder weather
than ever placed against your chest, against your gasp breath
bare chest, river water ten degrees at best, pressed
against the pedigree and genetics of your frenetic being here
because you knew I would be, and you knew I'd try not to care
but fail miserably, sweaty palms betraying
all the thoughts not worth saying.
Clouds are solid things, God is walking on them
my neighbor is the coolest because God is talking to him
special kind of crazy to be demented and lazy
let the flock come forth to you
true messenger, back seat passenger,
wood glue as a desperate inhalant or as a fastener
arts and dark crafts, huh? is that your game?
or are you a urinal frozen cube dropped mysteriously from a plane?
ten pounds lighter from fight or flight all nighters with lighters
you can't fight and take hits, you can't bit your dry lips
to pick strips of skin off and let loose blood underneath
as an excuse not to wear makeup
and not shake cups of nickels
because the sound makes your high mind happy and tickle.
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4. |
Reasons
02:50
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"everything happens for a reason," you said, admittedly it's true
though maybe not for the ideals that appeal to you
everything within itself holds a cause and an effect
everything you expect in a moment won't be what you get
because it happens regardless of thought or wishful spurring
it's created in the fact that other moments are occurring
and converging by chance into something you might hide from
good and bad things happen regardless of if you fight them
only acknowledging the fact it happened when it's bad,
we catalogued every dark day and argument we had
using words like 'never' and 'always' is ironic
because the best and worst of everyday is when our switchback minds thought them
for better or for worse were the names of roads we followed
persistently holding near every blue pill we swallowed.
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5. |
Religious
03:20
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I've loved you at arms length since I was eleven
but that's never mattered because I'm not going to heaven
it breaks your heart, the fact that so many people like me
have this affinity for suffering in some promised eternity
heard of, but never known
I'm sorry I need to touch the love that I'll call home
I'm sorry I'm frightened and need security
or at least the knowledge that if I fall, someone will catch me
and not call me out for every time I didn't believe it
I won't call what happens after death take it or leave it
I know you want to see the world as rippled by God's hands
or as a series of messages that we can't understand
but while all you see is Him, His Glory, and His Eminence,
the dirt and sand between my palms speaks only of his absence
and that's the saddest part, we see the same picture
though mine's run by making sense, and not run by scripture
because the only rules more solid than the ones written on stone
brought down from the highest mountains are the ones we call our own
but your rules are different, and sadly make you choose
between who will be there until you die, and who is coming with you
don't make me sit beside you with sweaty palms to tell
that no matter what you or I feel, my doubt is dragging me to hell.
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6. |
Reaffirming
04:13
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something is affirming that life is what it's supposed to be
ebbing between hopelessness and hope as if reminding me
that this is what it's like to have a fleeting sense of being
too sad to be living, and too happy to be agreeing
with the notion of art being something to express an inner voice
your hands and throat are shaking, thought it never was your choice
you never grew up knowing that a heart can break at any sight
you felt a hand go limp in yours, you saw an owl in the night
there is something glowing in your chest that's dulled by the screaming on the 3rd channel static buzzing in your skull
about the need to breathe and touch and die and sleep
while an old woman on the bus represents all the things you can't keep
and hold together long enough for your sleeping hands to touch
you're wanting an incorporeal something to be the crutch
of holding what your patchwork tin mind always tries to
it is what it is but what it makes you think of slides through
like sand grains counting, amounting to nothing
but what the past was, and through that, brushing
the glass walls to see there's a world more to life than hindsight
existing on the edge of a new moment despite
the fact that you're feeling in a different world than walking
and connecting thoughts like dry-docked hearts chalking
and out line between what you want and what's before you
smiling until it hurts, not afraid of being seen through
your bones on display empty except for tears
shed over how your heart will be forever far from here.
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7. |
Righteous
06:37
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the only degree of separation between us is a loneliness that willingly sustains itself
fixed there by some prior commitment to rejection of help
one second you're an artist, a conduit for something
but later you're human again with razor words blunting
the question marks you wish never got placed
after insomniac thoughts sprawled across your sleepless face
racing itself to get out of a world that is sand sadly swaying
in a dead oyster with no pearly to be found, except on the other side
but how happy can it really be when it chooses to hide
behind the opposite end of the choices that you made
to be happy one minute and regretful the next day?
revolving doors like an airport, a door we're both using
to swing back and forth between, a tango dance with confusion
every person seems to find a rock eventually
to hold onto, to stop moving, or to hide under most likely
but I can't trust that as legitimate happiness, it seems just like me
their motion sickness got sick of this duality
between what we want and really need
I want to run away, but I need you to stop me
as much as you weren't stars or my sun
it's pretty likely you knew me better than anyone
pulling and pushing like tides and wide currents
surviving the bad thoughts to keep the ones that weren't
around when I held you. you felt like an oval
with squarish sides, an armful of noble
thoughts held together with hands across your back
fingers overlapped because I lied about the things we lacked
more than anything, I got sick of the me in you
and scared of the alternative asserting itself as true
no one is owned but that doesn't mean we're free
it means you have to be something before you're anything
I tried to be living, but ended up sleeping
because then when bad things happen, you choose to stop dreaming
three in the morning, but the sweat stains are worth it
dirt in your half full cup is no problem so long as you don't stir it
or lure it out with driving by one more time
to see how their gardens growing, or if the same thoughts are on their mind
we're all coping somehow, you'll find new ways to make your spine pop
hitting the limit where your body makes the tears stop
but we don't cry, at least not privately
it's much more productive to take scissors and atrophy
part of yourself to be seen as once inhabited
by a creature called faith who found your soul and took a stab at it
you spun around the door to find yourself a few years older
sunburn, backpack, a white chip on your shoulder
the door spins again and invites you inside
but you'd far sooner kill yourself than give this another try
that's how we live. on the maxims of everything
there's a thousand more doors, each heavy and spinning
handles waxy, dripping melting
you write on the glass, "you will try, but can't help me."
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8. |
Regards
00:46
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"somebody’s got to scare 'em the fuck apart.
somebody’s got to tie ‘em tight.
somebody’s got to taste a little God in their mouth as they stomp walk with head nod in full on prestissimo. might as well be us."
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