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the most famous person who comes from my town, he put a bullet through his heart, and just before he did he left a not that says, quite famously [at least in part], ‘to my friends my work is done why wait?’ then he picked up his gun and resigned himself to his fate. now families and schools take their kids to his house on little daytrips. they always tell them everything he made, but they never tell them what he did. so no one knows how he felt when they see the bed where he knelt, and the children run and laugh through the rooms where he and his loneliness once together dwelt. i know one day my heart will fall apart, but it won’t be quite the same way. i won’t leave behind any kind of note. i’ll have said all i wanted to say. or maybe i’ll write one more song or create some beautiful work of art just to prove no mansion can hold near as much as my lonesome little heart.
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2. |
Steps
02:30
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i had this thought of my next million steps: after the last one, i’d fall down dead. now i have to make sure that every one counts and use them to figure a couple of things out. i hope that yr house is a few steps less, in case my feet beat and unconscious path. i hope that yr bedroom is a million steps away so you don’t find me face down in yr hallway. or maybe i’ll just walk the other way, because i don’t have a single step left to waste, and i can’t bear to think of yr face when you see me laying all cold and gray. i’ll walk and i’ll walk with my resolution steeled until with blood and with rain my shoes are all filled. i’ll walk through the cold, and i’ll never look back, until my fingers turn numb and their tips turn all black. i’ll walk until the buildings have all turned to rust, and i’ll walk until my bones are all ground to dust. i’ll think and i’ll plan the whole goddamned way until i know exactly what it is that i want to say. i’ll tell you whatever it is you think might help. i’ll tell you what i always have to tell myself. i’ll repeat it over again for you until we both believe that maybe it’s true. i’m fine. if you need me, i’m counting my steps.
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a couple months ago, i went back home and i talked a while with my mom. i could see from the way she looked at me that she was disappointed in what i’ve become. she could hear the hurt as it bubbled up through my throat. i shudder to think what she might say if she read all the things that i wrote. and i could see her as she struggled to understand how her little boy could grow up to be this man. about a year ago, my mom found god again. ever since that day, he seems to find his way into our conversations. she tells me all these lovely things her pastor said, and all these powerful passages that she’s read. and it brings me joy that she finds comfort in all these old stories. i can’t help but feel a little bad they mean nothing to me. sometimes i feel like my lot has been cast. sometimes i feel like lot’s wife. all i’ve been doing is looking back for my whole little life. every time i do, all i find are the people that i’ve loved and left behind made up as statues from the salt of all the tears that i’ve cried. none of them look quite how i recall. their features are not quite as sharp as the way they seem in my brain or this pain in my heart.
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4. |
Other Side
02:52
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those men sing of pain, of whiskey, and of cocaine, but i really only know one of those three. i can tell from how their progressions go and how their voices crack just so that i don’t know hurt. at least not completely, but i recognize the troubles they seem to have with life and so often i will write the same kinds of songs. but their voices seem so pure they make me unsure, and they make me wonder if i’m doing this all wrong. i’ve never really lost my mind and all my friends are still alive. i don’t know a thing of needles ripping through my skin, but i’ve screamed and i have yelled. i know loneliness real well. i know damn well just how my records spin. they always keep the pace and the tempo to all our heartaches. i’ll switch it back to 33 rpm. hearing the pain they’ve known, i don’t feel so alone. and i walk these old floors through this house tonight again. the songs they crackle. the songs they spit. they remind me that this is it. i need only make it through tonight. all those lonesome sounds pull me further down until i’ve found that i am back on the other side.
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5. |
When I Die
05:08
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