1. |
Abandoned Buildings
05:12
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There is no guarantee, no promise of fair. I will discard what I cannot repair and start to build again. I’ve got half-tied hands, burnt fingertips, and distractions.
Show me time. Lease some space. Give us rest.
Attempts to define every angle and hatched line, forget most of their meaning towards the end. Reassurance remains silent. I want secrets held by pyramids. I want to bury doubt and indifference. I will.
I will. I will what’s left to die.
I will unravel old gauze. I will take note of the cause. And I will remember the soft symphonies of abandoned buildings, and every word I heard that carried a weight worth more than just sound and syllables.
For all the words we learned that carry a weight worth more than just sound and syllables-- we’ve been hanging on with broken thumbs.
We’ve been hanging onto what is broken.
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2. |
Shadows
03:06
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Kill the witnesses. They’ve got no names to give. They don’t know what happened. Soon, they won’t know anything. Synaptic skips in my head, strive to fight each fixation when every little thought seems so overwhelming.
The contour of your cheek, that slight slope outwards and down, directs my eyes to your mouth. Then you turn and say to me: “we need to clean this house.” Moldy dishes crowd the sink. Stacked glasses crack and break under their growing impatience.
Get in the car and drive. Ignore the check engine light’s soft golden glow, it’s been burning for months now. Fill it up enough to get where I need to go, so nothing goes to waste when I finally break down.
Teeth will sink in until they puncture skin. I curse complacency, fear almost anything permanent. Dream of distant planets, they spin so far away. Sometimes the greatest shapes get overlooked or unnoticed.
How the tallest buildings cast the longest shadows over man, the hands that build these wheels only get crushed beneath them. How we assemble a symbol, sign or plan-- some simple slogan to breathe and believe in.
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3. |
White Roses
03:52
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It’s been a long, long time since you last claimed contentment. If you never close your hands, you can’t expect to keep anything in them. I trace template nights through telephone wires. We exist.
Our distant words try to divide the distance, and reach for a remedy, as the space swells in-between our bodies built of bone, and blood and uncertainty. We speak words so sweet, anticipate fractures in everything. I offer what I have to give. You wait for the things you want. Will white roses ever be enough? Will white roses be enough?
How strange it is to think, we were once strangers. Now, we’re ashamed to admit we reclaimed our former state. Accustomed to the way pink and blue dissolve into grey, I’ve seen it in some clouds. I felt it in ourselves, in spaces our bodies both know-- nothing subsists, nothing new will grow.
Our bodies built of bone and blood and uncertainty. You speak words so sweet. You expect the worst of everything. I offer what I have to give. You wait for the things you want. Will white roses ever be enough? Will white roses be enough?
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4. |
Loose Dust
03:14
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I heard a light is coming. You were the only one I’d known. After I got stuck in your turnstiles, you got lost in old catacombs. Oh how the years will mistreat you, for every small step you make wrong. I’ve taken so many for so long now, all roads lead away from home.
Loose dust, left in my wake. Mistrust was your mistake.
I saw the promise of solace in the outskirts of a stranger’s smile. Yet, I hold this companion, sorrow, the only one I’ve kept since I was a child. When I was seven years old, I’d stay awake and stare at the ceiling, and wonder where my mind will go, the day that my body stops breathing.
Loose dust left at my wake, won’t mend the crutches I break.
So I broke the body and I swallowed the sacrament. Offered fear, tired thoughts, a few words for what’s lost and won’t return again. I got no answer, only an empty bed, and the refrain of a fall that echos on and on. It’s all I hear anytime I listen.
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5. |
Soft Power Struggles
03:01
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Erosion, I relate. Endure each year compliant, with a constant ache-- coursing chest, throat and forehead. I have grown tired of life, tired of futile violence. This internal onslaught and all that stirs under succession thrones.
Sinking gut feeling, some things I never could seem to escape. Oh dear, would you please silence your cynicism? You know, not everything has a beginning and end.
Sleight-of-hand centuries, dismissing beauty in subtleties, can’t name a goddamn thing until it’s dead or complete. Soft power struggles. A slow defeat seems inevitable-- can’t revert concrete roads back to a field of marigolds.
Cycle the seasons. Some things I suppose will always remain. My dear, what a merciful benediction: most everything has a beginning and end.
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6. |
Terror Waves
01:41
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Gutted worn-out ties tethered to city lines. Orphaned an ideology, only the parasites survive polluted social climates-- shit-foundation birthed. I wish you nothing but the worst.
Wounded psalms, phrases I no longer speak, near expiration dates-- go gracefully retreat with uncertain syntax, unwanted empathy, with what could have followed each unspoken ellipses. I stomped out old embers. Ripped up every receipt. I left it all, left with an instance of relief.
Capacity of change. A view forever from atop the Blue Ridge mountain range. Five hours headed east on Interstate 40, from the Foothills to the Atlantic. The ocean absolved my feet. And manic turmoil inside me got washed away to sea. I’ve been waiting so long to finally feel free.
But when the tide returns, terror waves come crashing back to me.
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7. |
Sum Love
07:40
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The flare and fade clear. You spill sentiment like a shout. I’m half-awake to hear you say: “it all ends now.” Forget words said but not kept-- each omission, or edit to the script. Assess all our outstanding debt. What is lost? What is owed? What is left?
The confines of false charm grip you tight, but caress your skin. It all feels right, but what a lost cause to be so close to something vacant. May every loose end and sound bite stripped of circumstance, wash our wounds, our eyes, our hands. Let it blur from a distance-- what is lost, what is owed, what is left. What is lost? What is owed? What is left?
Space and time.
Now time moves slower most nights. Wait for dawn to break, then take each day in stride. I won’t spend anymore of mine searching for sum love-- I think in time it finds us.
So keep open eyes. Keep open eyes.
And you will know when it arrives.
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