O, lonely country road
I admire your twists
I obsess over your turns
My eyes touch every tree that passes by me
Or rather every tree that I pass

I’ll never forget the way the flies lit up in the headlights
Or the way they stuck to the windshield
An instant of pain
Followed by an eternity of paradise

You kept flowers in your lap
Our hands graze each other’s thighs
Barbed wire sunflower petals wrapped
around your beige body

People think it’s weird that you kiss whoever you want,
When they give you enough attention.
We like the boys who play with vapor
And the girls of our own invention

I remember hearing things slam next door
And listening to my neighbor cry
I never learned her name
Instead, I learned her sadness.

I only mention it because
You cry like her, murmuring
“God, I wish we never met”
I play with vapor
And question what you really meant

I’m stuck to the wall
Stuck to the stool below me
Stuck next to the empty fish tank that’s thinking out loud

The couch is looking for me
But the wall has me in her grasp

I remember my life when I was free
But I don’t long for the sun on my face
nor do I miss the grass between my toes

What I miss is roaming my house freely.
Lurking in the kitchen well past midnight.
Walking into the bathroom just for the hell of it.
Sprawling out on the floor and watching the dust bunnies dance while I blow under the fridge

I miss my life as a free man.
Maybe one day I’ll be home again.
But for now, I’m shackled to Sheetrock

Our teacher taught us about beautiful places
With the blinds drawn shut so we could see them on the overhead
The face on the mountain has since been washed away
The oak tree outside the window grows tall and strong to this day

The Amazon is disappearing
The projects down the street are still there
Nestled between dry sandy lots and convenience stores

Antarctica is cracking and melting into the sea
But I still drive by the 3rd-grade classroom
And see that same rusted green Camry parked across the street

And those things are beautiful to me
But I'm the only one, it seems, to see how
The power of the everyday, the unremarkable
Can leave you that mark, the one called beauty

And maybe I'm wrong but I feel it's my duty to inform you
That tropical jungles and mountain vistas are just a burden
Right now my thoughts are sporadic like a finch indoors
So I just open up my window and let that bird out

And while my brain is poked outside
I just take a moment to notice that house across the street from mine The bluish one I could've sworn had shutters

I notice the browning grass underneath the AC
The cracks on the sidewalk where the tree roots once reached for the sky
I notice the marks on the road where the car swerved and skidded to a stop
To avoid the now cracked telephone pole
And I see how they never really fade away
I remember that he was so young when it happened
But that I was just a stupid kid
And I think about what each day means to all of us
And how beautiful that really is

I'm not split like Jekyll & Hyde
I wouldn't say I've got two faces
but if we get to talking,
Of course, there's some things I'm gonna try to hide.
We all have secrets buried in our minds
And we all get nervous when the conversation hits too close to home

I think I'm more like an iceberg.
There's a part of me that stays above the surface
And everyone sees it.
But here's the thing about icebergs;
They're mostly underwater.

The stuff inside me is a technicolor spectrum
From the softest pinks to the reddest reds.
I go from the lightest yellows to the deepest blues
And all the hues in between
I am a miracle and so are you

But our monochrome iceberg skin
Only serves to cover up the colors that we hide within

So there it is.
Maybe I don't have two faces
But I do have two sides;
Outside and in.

While it's true that some hide more than others do,
The things that I hide
Might not even matter to you.

So why is it hidden?
What's keeping it underwater?
Well, every time I try to surface,
I end up thinking of my mom and father.
And so there are parts of me that will stay forbidden.

But it's more than just them isn't it?
My friends and family
The occasional random visitor to my sea ice castle
That for the last 19 years has only grown more and more submerged

I guess none of us know what we're afraid.
Or maybe it's just that,
The fear of the unknown.
That what lies beneath will lead us to be alone
But what's fear ever done?
Sure, it's helped us survive
But can it let us truly live?

When I'm 95, I don't want to look back
And see fear, see regrets, secrets,
Any of that

I wanna look back and see
The technicolor tapestry
That lives inside of you and me.

I never understood the red light at an empty intersection.
I’m the only one there, and still I'm forced to stop.
But the light changes fast, just like everything else.
But the red lights add seconds, even minutes to my clock,
when all I need is one instant to think.

The radio showed me the blues when I was 13
Those songs took me by the hand and said
‘Life may be a party but there are things your young eyes haven’t seen’

‘There are things in this world that you could only dream,
but kid you're still young and possibilities are bursting at the seams’

The Blues, that wild woman, she burned my mind.
She handed me the bottle of whiskey
and so the taste was made
and it was bittersweet.
Her voice was so soft but filled with regret.

Life’s a party that just goes all night
I remember when all my questions had answers
but now thoughts have no reply

My last dime is on some snake-eyes
but when they come up unlucky
the train leaves the station
and I know my wallet looks empty,
but trust me its full of time
and now I've got 36 days, 17 hours and minutes to spare

So when I’m driving around on an empty road
and the light hanging above me turns red,
I’ll know exactly where those seconds go.