What would I have to say
to make you stay a little longer?
What would I have to do?
I wish I were stronger.

If I said that I loved you,
would you call my bluff?
But if I said I wanted to,
would that be enough?

What would I have to say
for you to finally leave me be?
What would I have to do
for you to finally set me free?

If I said I hated you,
would you call my bluff?
But if I said I wanted to,
would that be enough?

If I saw you today,
would you think the things I'm thinking?
If I saw you today,
would you feel the way I'm feeling?
The stars shined brighter through the lens of our love
and even though we played the odds
I guess it still was not enough
for you.

Is there some other way
for me to stand my own reflection?
Is there some other way,
other than self destruction?
Well these sleepless nights make me forget our reverie
but the cigarette between my fingers
brings me closer to the memories
of you.

Do the New England stars
shine any brighter without me?
Do the New England stars
dance for you profoundly?
From Oklahoma they get darker every day
and here I am
searching for temporal escaping from the pain
I thought was caused by you,
but really was caused by me.

Should I say goodbye
to you?

You were my reason.
You were my strength.
You were my charity.
Who will take the blame?

You were the ocean tide
on that fateful night.
Full moon in the sky,
I held on tight.

Even my strongest grip
would soon prove futile.
The season was changing
so we pretended for a while.

Even in the deepest
part of my heart,
you'll find our season there,
even though we're apart.

I told myself to breath in deep.
The pain was just a subsidy
of love.
I watched the days, weeks, months go by;
I’m in need of an alibi
other than fleeting moments of joy.

Because they come like a lighthouse for a ship that’s stuck at sea
and only when I find them in the storm do I feel your love for me.
And all the time they’re getting sparser and though I feel love for you,
On days like this I wonder if my voyage ought to continue.

The nights were long and the days brought no light.
I came to you with a heart contrite,
asking if you’d relieve my suffering.
As the orange sun eclipsed the horizon
That final night brought our love’s demise in,
in the form of one last fatal kiss.

Because you were the winter to my autumn jubilee.
You took the weather that was already cold and you made me finally freeze.
And all the brightly colored leaves are now fallen, brown, and dead
just like our love. I should’ve left before the season changed, but I stayed instead.
And that last night, it was like a ball and I asked for one last dance.
But as the music started playing I realized my only chance
to be okay was to leave you, so when Fate asked to cut in
I gladly let him, and I left you praying I could start over again.

On the day I first met you
we were both staring in the void.
The better angels in my head
made their services employed.
But the inner demons of my heart
began to chime in too.
They were louder than the better parts of me
and so I fell for you.

We stood there in that open field
gazing at the sky above.
We noticed that our stars were crossed
but arrogance clouded our love.
We thought that we could take on fate
and so we built our walls up,
made of cigarettes and broken hearts,
false security installed by us.

We saw the tide come rolling in,
and we both knew that we weren't safe
on that precipice that was our love,
suspended high above the waves.
And when the tide came crashing down
we thought that we were strong enough
to face the waves, hand in hand,
but our locked hands became two empty cuffs.

I’m stuck between who I am and should be.
On the outside I have it together,
But on the in, it’s sin that consumes me.
Will I be stuck in this state forever?
I’m so quick to pass judgment on others,
Giving myself superiority.
But I’m the lowest of lowly brothers,
The least of these I am supposed to be.
And yet, the worst, myself I patronize,
But no change to me does it seem to bring,
And so, therefore, I’ve come to realize,
It does no good to let these sorrows ring.
So in the end, what matters most is this:
Don’t count your own, but count the other’s bliss.

On the highway I'm a traveler
stuck between the earth and the sky.
Green signs to my right slowly tick the miles by.

It's been a long time since I've last seen you.
You were the best friend I had,
A true one through and through.

But then one night you reached out
and cried for help,
But I wasn’t there.
You were completely by yourself.

I should've seen the signs coming, they were everywhere.
No food, no sleep, falling hair.
They say it's something that must destroy to survive.
One of the simplest, but most terrifying alibis.

As I approach the exit, I shed a tear.
I can’t think of a life without you near.
I start to signal and I move to the right.
I take the exit, my destination in sight.

I approach the gates and they open wide for me.
Time to let it go, time to finally be free.
You don't know what you have
until you're at the bottom of the pit,
utter blackness surrounds you
and your fate you must commit
to the seemingly miniscule sliver of hope that life goes on.

I walk through the grass-paved rows
until I find your name.
All these stories etched in concrete,
none of them the same.

I find your story on its own underneath a tree.
I say some words, drop some flowers,
and pray that you are free.