It was but a whisper,
Soft touch of sorrow,
Wind-kissed bare branches,
Some trace of tomorrow,
The world bleeds wide open,
On hummingbird’s wings,
Built on void and division,
******* Jack wedding rings,
Tugging and timeless,
Half-written romance,
Kind hearts dare to linger,
If blessed with a chance,
Dim light in the window,
Cold rain on her face,
A heart starving in safety,
Eyes of fire and lace.
On the head of a pin,
Choke and grasping at air,
One touch of temptation,
Still with you anywhere.

The revolution left you spinning, now you’re sitting where you stood,
Can’t go back to the beginning, wouldn’t fight this if you could,
In the garden that you hated, where nothing has ever grown,
Under shadows where we waited, until the light left us alone,
With our indifferent indecision, and stolen bottles in your car,
We’ll drink until we’re happy here, happy with who we are,
Reaping the rewards of repetition, less memorable memories,
Stumbling sick with superstition in the safety of disease,
But come morning better angels will be beating down our doors,
With tools in hand, their best-laid plans will build us better wars,
Daydream a hero’s fate, but I was too late, lost on that battlefield,
Too dull to be that sword you fell on, and far too weak to be your shield,
Now left with a threadbare chair and TV glare, a dusty driver’s seat,
That unworn path and drunken sailor’s laugh, still mourning my defeat,
But I can’t go back or throw it all away, the things I never meant to be,
A castle built on compromise, a pile of clothes shaped just like me,
So maybe now is not the time to sit and count the things we’ve lost,
How can we admit defeat, when so much hell remains uncrossed?

Today, oh today, sick with rust and decay,
The clogged streets out of town that only got in your way.
Nightingale sing-song, sing cool summer nights,
Sing seashell-string houses, please turn out the lights.
We’ll be grown-ups grown up still wondering what we will be,
She said she won’t trust anyone over 30, only Jesus and me.
And I wait and I pace down the wall by the fence,
Nervous with 3am loneliness, ramshackle suspense.
Are there still windows worth watching, back dust country roads,
Some lost place love lingers, bubbles up and explodes?
You were here, I was there, are we anywhere still?
Be my sweetest regret, I’ll be your very first ****.
And today, just today, weak with strength, far away,
Swollen with promises of forever, and no intention to stay.

Now that we’ve been here before,
Distinguished lion from shark,
Learned all of fortune and greed,
And slept alone in the dark.

Now that we’re fathers of sons,
Nomads and lonely old men,
We know how far we must go,
So we know where to begin.

Now that the drunks never sing,
Sleep under bridges and coats,
The words we never could say,
Slowly suffocate in our throats.

Now that the oceans are warm,
Concealing currents so strong,
Will we still die hero’s deaths,
Or just admit we were wrong?

Now that we’ve lost all we found,
With only hope to conceal,
Placing our lives in a box,
All to make living less real.

Now that we’ve been here before,
And did it all just the same,
We’re better knowing we’re not,
And still never sorry we came.

I felt the rain on my face and toes.
We were apples of eyes once, pride and second chances.
Now the paint has cracked and faded on the houses we grew up in.
Those days are boxed in closets, sealed away in cheap frames or forgotten.
I stare at a barely-recognized face in the mirror and realize that I never once thought this through.
The plans that carried me away now rest firmly on my shoulders.
I fear the day I will no longer be able to simply shrug it all away.
Still, I’d give my life to you if I had it to do over again.
Like I should have all along.

Does it hurt more to know that you exist,
As a moment passed, or chance I missed?
Than it would to never fall under your gaze,
Or feel your light upon the coldest days?
Last night, I dreamed you never knew me,
Like a ghost, you walked straight through me,
Tonight, I’ll let that nightmare overtake me,
For fear your softest touch might break me,
So paint me as a summer’s breeze, a rose,
That never dies, but never grows,
Leave me in your yard to peel and rust,
Or on a shelf with keys and dust,
Some tattered memory, your something blue,
Anything that you might hold on to,
Because no victory, no grand success,
Would be worth it if you thought me less,
I’ve seen my best, in both peace and war,
But I don’t yearn for those days anymore,
Because no honor bestowed could ever eclipse,
The chance to be a single smile upon your lips.

A burning sensation bubbles under cold skin,
The excuse that we turn to again and again,
Left us pacing the ceiling, the walls and the stars,
Still ignoring those feelings, the close calls and the scars,
And maybe I know I knew I’d forget to let go,
Or maybe you saw you’d see what we lost long ago,
With such practiced decay, simply too weak to say,
You were who I used to be as you faded away,
Sung from sick rusty throat, make some hazy appeal,
Pretending synthetic swelter somehow makes us real,
Or at least leads us through another purposeless fight,
To find heat in the embers we can no longer ignite,
In a slow search for composure, hold back, contemplate,
But maybe we only lose more the longer we wait,
So make peace with the ashes, embrace this disarray,
Or become who you used to be as I fade away.