We are the weary kind
Young hearts with bitter lips
Like old men cursing the government
We try and fail to reconcile ourselves
With the world and sins surrounding us


We are the weary kind
Tarnished souls and foul language
We joke to fix the world
Or at least fend it off a little longer
Before it closes us inside

We are the weary kind
We stay up late with talks of how to save the world
And how to get out of it alive
I've been told that everybody dies
But what if we stayed?
Do the weary learn to survive?

I found you in a ditch
You were ripped up and tangled
I couldn't even tell if you were breathing
And you confided in me, who'd left you here

The girl you loved had you by the strings
She was tearing out your stitches
And wringing out your blood
While I tried to sew you back together,

She took a plane out of Chicago
And landed in another boy's arms.
You told me it was your fault
That she wanted more than this

I never trusted you’d survive with her
You tried for years and years
To untangle the thread, and I found
you wound up and choking.

You've always been a patient man,
So full of sympathy, an endless apology.
But you said you're leaving in a month
I hope you meant it.

I’m afraid of dying.
I’m afraid of what
I’ve been warned about you.
I’m scared of everything
That may just be true

I’m afraid of everyone.
I’m afraid of what
They’ve all told me about you.
I’m terrified of living
Without a single answer

Was Thomas so wrong
Not to believe you
Without slipping his fingers
Through your heart and your wrists?

I’m afraid of being a skeptic.
I’m afraid of doubting
All that I’ve been told about you.
I’m scared of believing
That you’re my only chance

I’m afraid of being wrong.
I’m afraid of what
I’ve been told you might do.
I’m terrified of being right
And falling into nothingness

Would I be so wrong
Not to believe you
Without slipping my own fingers
Through your heart and your wrists?

I’m afraid of eternity.
I’m afraid of where
Either death may lead me.
I’m terrorized by knowing
Only one fear is real.

This is the first time
I’ve noticed the gray of the stone
And the mountain above it.

This is first time,
Holding up this burden,
I’ve felt eternity.

I’ve watched the same cuts
And gashes from jagged edges
Tear themselves into my hands.

I’ve felt the same blood
And sweat on my skin
Trickle down my arms to the ground.

This is the first time
I’ve let my neck hang below
My weary shoulders.

And for the first time
I’ve truly abandoned hope,
I’ve finally felt defeat.

With nothing left to give
And nowhere else to go
I’m closing my eyes.

I know what this means
And what will become of me
For giving up this life.
But I am tired
Of trying to conquer eternity
And the weight of the stone.

In your face I see the girl I loved
all those years ago. You are a
memory between my thoughts
flickering like dying embers.
From minutes spent with a shaking
voice through the phone, you will
never be the same. I offer everything
I have, knowing the bullet cut
clean through your chest, and
nothing will soak up the blood.
You deserve better than this.

Mom sneaks through the front door
I'm pretending to be asleep on the couch
At 4AM, she reeks of cigarettes
She closes the door softly, dad stays asleep

I pretend I am sleeping on the couch
Mom drags the smell of cigarettes in with her
The door squeaks quietly, dad still sleeps
He left the TV on again, it reports today's tragedy

Mom smells like black lungs again.
The door clicks shut, she creeps past dad's recliner
He left the TV on again, tragedies muffle her footsteps
She's used to sleeping alone by now.

The door's closed, and dad still sleeps
He left the TV on and snores through tragedy
Mom can barely sleep with him around
The tragedies mean nothing to me

Dad leaves the TV on every night
Mom would sleep better if he left
I don't care about the tragedies
I can see my mom ****** in a crumpled burning car

Mom is restless when dad is home
Tragedies don't mean anything to her
She speeds at night and takes drags of embers
I wonder if she really wants to die

Tragedies play through the screen
Mom speeds at night and lights another cigarette
I wonder, does she want to die?
Doesn't she ever think of me?

Mom drives too fast at night and burns up her lungs
I worry that she's always dying
And never thinks to call me saying, I remember you
I picture sirens and lights outside my house

I ask God why she wants to die
I wonder if she knows what she does to me
When I hear the sirens driving by
I shut my eyes and wait for the door to creak again

I scream whispers, why does she do this to me?
I pray the sirens aren't going to find her
I close my eyes and try not to cry
And at 4 AM, she smells like cigarettes

I'm trying the best I can
To let go of the things I'm not
and put down the stone
But the tumor swells at night
I try to drown it with poison
Watch me catch fire

I don't want to eat myself alive
Tear at the flesh, red stains on my shirt
I'm trying to hold my guts together
Without spilling them on the floor
Pull back the skin and see what's chewing them up

This is ******* the pain
Put down the needle and the spoon
Tell the mirror it's time to stop
Tearing apart all night will **** you
I can bleed out the sickness
Dry it on a towel
And set it on fire
Burn away all the doubts

I can bleed out the sickness
I can set fire to the poison

I remember too much
Teach me how to forget
Mix the blood and dripping medicine
to a lighter shade of red
so the sheets stain less violently
so the spatters look like
a bouquet of pink lilacs

In the back seat of Dad’s red Grand Prix
I thought about death for the first time
and if God forgave kids who didn’t believe in him

Eternity was suddenly terrifying,
even in Heaven, an endless celebration
And in the dark, I would be alone, a streak of light
racing through empty space
with nowhere to go but further away

Mom was the first to see me falling to pieces
as I tried to explain the promise of Heaven was scary
like endless flames, and an eternity of nothing was just the same

As a child I ran from fear and hid in a well lit room
But here, as a crumpled heap on the ground, I couldn’t escape
Mom begged me not to be afraid
with a kiss and a therapist’s receipt
She promised peace and beauty in death
as I tore myself apart on the side of the road

My house was built in 1926
It was plastered with white stucco
framed within a blue trim, once green
which still shows through chips of paint
flaking off like a scab
from a curious child's playground wounds

This house fended off storms and fires
for nearly one hundred years
and stood tall and strong even when
my family fell to pieces

Dad should have left a long time ago
No one could sleep with him around
as he snored through our tragedy:
A mother and a father who hated
each other, both too stubborn to leave

I had dreams at 4AM, when I could sleep,
of the house collapsing, and these walls caving in
burying us alive in dusty white gravel

Mom wanted to be free like she was
when she would smoke cigarettes in her 20's
with young men lucky enough to have her

Dad didn't want the world to see us destroyed
So he stayed inside our little white tudor
tearing down the walls as we all fell apart
and were buried beneath the wreckage
that tore us all to pieces