1. |
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I’m traveling
I’m in good company
No I’s I’d want to be
But the hum of the train yard coming into…
I can’t understand the front seat
Over the music
And I don’t mind
You always have great taste
Fists full of changing leaves
I miss you more than I’d like!
|
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2. |
Different Doors
03:45
|
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It could have ended sooner
In a more distracting place
Or fizzled out from distance
Left halfway unexplained
But these are the wheels in motion
Red mountains of old clay
Thought the drizzle was a fiction
’Til I spun out in the rain
Of course I’ll drive you home
We’re going to the same place
We’ll get your car in the morning
Then wave, and shut our different doors
We could have withered softly
In a more forgiving way
What’s done is done, chameleon
You turned the soil strange
These are the stars untethered
Hear the thunder in the cage?
Thought the lightning might remember
No need to reiterate
Shit sucks if I upset you
I’m only taking your lead
A precedent you set free
The first week after three years
You bring him home
Where we split the rent
I want to feel wanted too
Of course I’ll drive you home
We’re going to the same place
We’ll get your car in the morning
Then wave, and shut our different doors
Of course it’s only timing
But time takes a while
I’ll see you when we’re anchored
Then smile, and shut our different doors
|
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3. |
Coast to Coast
05:53
|
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Coddled, content
I forget and forget
Which whims I flew with
And which I had left
As a spectral scent
A chameleon sheds
Familiar urges
Are pulling him
Coast to coast
Coast to coast
Coast to coast
There’s nothing in the middle
That would
let me know
I’m loved when I’m low
Robbed of intent
I resent and resent
How slowly I fled from
The hurricane wind
Still water tipped
From the birdbath we chipped
A deafening whisper trickles in
Dope of the spirit
I don’t dare to resist
And it goes
Coast to coast
Coast to coast
Coast to coast
When I’m by you
I feel loved when I’m low
Coast to coast
Coast to coast
But I wish I didn’t know you were hiding
Every other song
I wanna know what’s in the middle
Where the land locks
Where the roads unfold
Miles of the same
Let my brain bathe in new nothings
Kneeling in the dry canyon’s dry shade
Coddled, content
I pretend and pretend
The new whims I gather
Will be my amends
Cicadas will sing
And the current will bring
The familiar cadence
Bent on pulling me
Coast to coast
Coast to coast
Coast to coast
There’s someone in the noise
Who will let me know
I’m loved when I’m low
I’m loved when I’m low
I’m loved when I’m low
|
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4. |
Speed Traps
03:22
|
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We could not have laughed harder on the day
That they installed a speed trap in your neighborhood
O Baroness Berating
(Seven leashes bearing seven dogs)
So skilled in her art,
Shrieked at us in unearthly decibels
I think she threatened to call your mom
Still we tried to beat our record
With the reckless timbre of:
If there’s a car around this bend, we are going to die.
If there’s a car around this bend, we are going to wreck it and then die
Slowly, I realized
I didn’t miss you like I thought I would,
And we stood in the December chill like
Seven sinners transgressing seven gods.
I never want to see this parking lot again.
If there’s a car around this bend, we are going to die.
If there’s a car around this bend, we are going to wreck it and then die
The current is a fiction,
And I am the car around the bend
Seven leashes bearing seven dogs;
Seven sinners transgressing seven gods.
|
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5. |
||||
Why don’t I know it?
Am I so drawn to you?
In the back of your car
Sun rises, sun sets
Why can’t I feel it?
Am I so deep in my own head?
In the blink of an eye
Sun rises, sun sets
Why should I shed it,
When I went and made it a part of me?
In the back of your car
Sun rises
And we fall asleep
I’m sure I’ll find it
When I’m back in the sound
In the face of a stranger
Sun rises, somehow
I want to know what’s in the edges
Where the lands melts
And leaves no trace
Where the river meets her promised sea
In a soft and Venus embrace
Let my brain bathe in our favorite needs
When the world’s erased
And the soil’s strange
You’re the only thing I want to keep
|
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6. |
Aviary
03:21
|
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Cicadas sing unseen in a humid belly
Through the night
Through the morning’s early breeze
Summer cedes, bursting seams in the womb of an aviary
Where we knew we’d been born again
I waited to be found
In another body
Another head
Sun rises
Sun rises again
You were the weight of your hurricane head
You were a wreck and you’d wreck it again
Let it burn for your vanity (hey)
Drag earth to calamity (hey)
Dark threat,
Car around the sharp bend
Entertaining your favorite needs
You spoiled the splendor
You killed the only thing you wanted to keep
I waited to be found in a humid belly
Before my time
Before anything
Summer cedes, bursting seams in the tomb of an aviary
Where we know we’ll be whole again
|
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7. |
You Better
02:31
|
|||
And so I’m so suddenly unearthed
Back in the sound
The clanging, shaking ground
A stranger with a trembling temple shouts
“If I knew you better
I’d ask you to try this coffee.”
She says
“Maybe this is all wrong,
And this is the world’s worst job for a rising headache.”
And so I try, but I can’t tell her anything,
Wait what does decaf even taste like?
She says
“No problem, I can plant the seed
And if I think it has caffeine
My brain will say that’s cool with me.”
My arms fly over the canyon
When my feet are planted in the riverbank
When will this cage be left halfway unexplained?
If only I knew you better
If only I knew you better
If only I knew you better
If only I only I only I
|
||||
8. |
No Canyon Between Us
03:26
|
|||
There is a string that needs to be played
A song that needs a name
Before it disappears
Before I disappear
Or else I stay the same
There is a grain of sand
Between my favorite teeth
It's everything I can do to keep
The ground under my feet
Nervous like the candle flame flickers
In the desert
Gawking like the yellow grass getting watered
And watered and watered
(Getting watered and watered and watered, watered and watered)
There is a string that lasts forever
And holds the only thing I want to keep
Halfway unexplained
Or unexplained away
Or else I spoil the splendor
There is a flash of pause
Between your favorite thoughts
It's nothing like you asked for
But it's what you got
Nervous like the candle flame flickers
In the desert
Gawking like the yellow grass getting watered
And watered and watered
There is a string that needs to be played
There is a map that needs to be opened
There is a song in search of a name
There is a path that looks like an exit
|
||||
9. |
Soft and Venus
04:05
|
|||
I’m sure I’ll find some sureness of spirit
Or a truth like an onion unraveling
And when you call I’ll be around to hear it
Inevitable feelings beget inevitable actions
For the tenth year running, I receive rival offerings
The thrumming of a soft and Venus aria
Versus the sound of Nina’s song declawed
I’m sure I’ll find the time to forget it
Unless I am more truthful with myself
And when you lose your sure grip I am forgiven
But you’re who’s who’s who of redirecting my decisions
For the nth year running, I receive rival offerings
The thrumming of a soft and Venus aria
Versus the sound of Nina’s song on high
Does it feel right?
Does it feel right?
For the final year running, I receive rival offerings
The thrumming of a soft and Venus aria
Versus the sound of every other song
|
||||
10. |
Before Anything
01:07
|
|||
I need to know what’s in the branches
Where the road can’t reach
Where the soil is a stranger
And there is no sea
When I trade my fists for leaves
When I’m unraveling
And so I’m so suddenly
Watching myself singing
From a half-torn seed
|
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11. |
Half-Torn Seed
04:01
|
|||
We took root by the wind-thrown river
Swelling unaware from a half-torn seed
And when we were tall we wanted to see
The shoots we’d been been haunted to be
So when the calm autumn unblurred the current
We looked in and saw
Our ugly colors and half-sized leaves
We laughed that the image could be so inaccurate
We hounded and deviled the Aviary for making
Such a dumb fucking funhouse mirror
So it slowed the current to a trickle
And everything we’d known started dying
Like it had somewhere to be
Still, our picture was a parody
“We demand to be admired
Or we’ll let it all burn.”
And it said “It’s what you’re given,
But your roots are not your worth.”
So the river withered in the ruthless brimstone fever
’Til the dry shade swallowed our ugliness whole
We climbed to the Aviary
And took root
In another body, a better soul
A kinder truth
But the clarity like a wing
Caught in half-lives
Of old feelings
We wanted to lose
Felt our brevity like a bee sting
Felt a sureness of spirit bloom
When all we need is to return to
Our half-torn seed
“We demand our second chances
We didn’t mean to let it burn.”
And it said “It’s the gift you were given,
But you treated it like a curse.”
“We demand our second chances
We never meant to let it burn.”
And it said “It’s the gift you were given,
I thought I made it obvious that bottomless
wasn’t the word.”
“We demand our second chances,
To re-write the whims that led
To our alarming circumstances.”
And it said
“… … … don’t wreck it again.”
|
||||
12. |
Shed It
05:40
|
|||
It’s not what I said it was a year ago
And it’s not that I thought I had somewhere better to be
I just felt so fucked up, so untidy
And the summer erupts
Burning bridges beyond repair
And I am going through it all
Through it all at once
I am going through it all
Through it all at once
I used to think I was
More universal
I used to think I was
More universal
This is
This is the cage
I was so afraid of
I am so afraid of
Getting used to this
It’s not what I said it was
When I said I was being honest for once
But it’s better here
‘Cause everything we touch sings like chimes
And we don’t have to feel any empathy
Because everyone’s fine
And I am going through it all
Through it all at once
I am going through it all
Through it all at once
I used to think I was
More universal
I used to think I was
More universal
This is
This is the cage
I was so afraid of
I am so afraid of
Coming down from this
I waited to be found
In another body, another head
From the cage I haunted
To a cadence bent on pulling me…
It’s not what I said it was when
I wanted nothing more than to shed it
And I’m not the same as I was
When summer was softer
When you cared
When I didn’t care
Now I’ll put in the effort
To build my bridges from the dirt
And I am planted in the dust
Deep in the fallow
I am planted in the dust
Pleading with my shadow to fade
This is the cage I was so afraid of?
I am
I am the cage I was so afraid of
This is
This is the thing I thought couldn’t be overcome?
Well okay
That’s not right at all
Well okay
There is no cage
Well okay
There is no Aviary
Well okay
There is no cage
When we heard our brevity
A song in the sunrise
The promise of Venus
A shell for a soft spine
We no longer needed
A chameleon soul
This is the way
We let our whims and offerings go
(Well okay, I’m sure I’ll find it)
Well okay, I’m sure I’ll go)
From coast to coast
What’s done is done
When we’ve flown through different doors
To be loved when we’re low
It’s the same as we were
When we wanted to shed it
When we wanted nothing more
Than a sureness of spirit
We’re in good company
I’m alright
I’ll stay a half-torn seed
I’m okay
I’m in good company
I’m alright
Fists full of changing leaves
|
Freshman Biology Seattle, Washington
You always
have great taste,
Fists full of
changing leaves,
I miss you more
Than I'd like.
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