I don't see heaven for what it is
I see it for what it fails to be
And it fails to be right here with me
So I put trust and faith in what I see
And I see more than your eyes
But nothing more beautiful
So I'll keep staring
While my heart keeps daring my body
To give something to you
To pass you a letter, to press send
To get down on my knees and plea
But there is nothing to see in me
Except for honesty and good company
And honestly we both know that's not enough
I don't see me for what I am
I see me for what I fail to be
And I fail to be right there
Where you are
Lying on your bed questioning heaven
Wondering what it is
Why you should put your faith in it
And my only dream is that you put your faith in what you can see
For you to put your faith in me
Whilst I continue to put my faith in you
Whether I am loved in return or not
Your eyes are still a better use of my time
Than striving for a heaven no man has seen

She's a tortured soul
In a privileged girl's world
It's hard for me to imagine
Not being able to justify my pain
In a world where there's not supposed to be any problems
That seems to be the problem
I'd be the first to throw a fit
If she ******* about the money she had
But we all forget
All the money in the world
Can't hug empty arms
Or catch a falling heart
She breaks like the rest of us
But fights through the pain
'Cause there's not supposed to be any problems
For a girl with her last name
Like Roger Clemens and his ****** sock
She marches on with a bleeding heart
She puts on fronts
Like little black dresses
It's as far as she can get
From where all the stress is
When she's not being herself
She's being what she is
Rich, white, and beautiful
Nothing wrong with that
Till you go home and turn off your lights
Your shadow can't tell you what color you are
Your 700 thread-count sheets forgot how to add
And your mirror's not working right tonight
All you're left with is the dark
And the pain in your heart
And we all know that's a deadly combination
Whether you live in a box
Or a mansion
Daemons still torture your thoughts
But just like Van Gogh and his missing ear
She marches on with haunted dreams
Yeah
She tried to shop her way out of this
One progressively lower top at a time
But it doesn't matter how **** you are
Or how many guys are looking at you
If he's not
There's no fooling yourself here
It was all for him to begin with
And so she finds another problem
Her daddy's credit card can't buy her out of
And the burden of her last name
Continues to weigh down her soul
Always working on herself
Learning languages, instruments, diets
Like she's out of Jane Austin's
Demented 1800's stock market
Just trying to raise her profit shares
Like a Kennedy and their legacy
She marches on underachieving royalty
Her therapist wishes he could prescribe her a bottle of wine
Knows sober she'll never give him the whole truth
But a word of warning
Once she starts she won't stop till she comes to
And it doesn't come out in a narrative either
So you have to sift through all the
I'm-fat's, the nobody-likes-me's, and the do-you-think-I'm-pretty's
But if you can do that
You'll get to the good stuff
To the he-hurt-me's, the I'm-lonely's, and the I'm-not-over-him's
The my-parent's-don't-approve's, the I-feel-abandon's, and the I'm-not-over-him's again
And if all that sounds familiar
It's because they're universal
Heart breaks don't check credit scores
Daemons don't need bank statements
You're never too rich to cry
Like Cinderella and her glass slipper
She marches on with a limp

Her halo is brightest in the dark
Something about the way the gold
Just reflects the lingering rays
Of a turned off light bulb

She can see into your soul
And know if your worth saving
Before you see it in yourself
To find a better way

She doesn't help people who already have help
She doesn't contribute to lost causes
She goes where the support groups wont
Finds the people who don't know they need help

In a room full of bullet holes
This angel keeps out the rain
In an arm full of track marks
This saint lets out the pain

She doesn't ask for permission
Doesn't look for those looking for help
Says if they're looking
They'll find it within themselves

Somewhere deep inside of her
God saw fit to come back to Earth
Shes a messiah without a gospel
A prophet without an agenda

She's not running for office
She's running from cops
She's not asking for donations
She's begging for change

This angel of mercy
Only survives because of it
This harbinger of love
Lives without it

The invisible hand slapped her in the face
And she kissed the blisters it gave him
God asked her to build an ark
She said,  “No, I can't afford it, but I'll fill it if it's there”

Under the star light her halo glows bright under the Burnside bridge
Her voice is the silence between discharging of shells
Her lullaby's to the villagers sounds like opening empty wallets
Her tears fall like shooting stars letting you make a wish every time she feels your pain

Moments
Like ordering two mochas
Just to watch you make them
Forgetting your name five times
Before getting your phone number
Wiping chocolate off your shirt
Trying unsuccessfully to flirt my way
Out of spilling on you
Little moments
Like finally having the guts to ask you out
Running to the coffee shop full speed
Just to find out it was your day off
Sulking my way through my third cup of tea
Cursing the fates for their insolence
Right until you walked in to cover someone else's shift
And running out too scared again
Little moments like those
Remind me why I fight through
Big times like these
Little moments
Like driving over the mountains
To get to the first big storm
Just to be the first ones to kiss in the rain
After the summer sun chapped our lips so long
We forgot the taste of our kiss
Little moments
Like the first time I took you out in heels
And you spent the whole night
Whispering to yourself about not falling
Right up until I fell twice
Down a flight of stairs
And for you
Little moments
Like you running over to pick my head up
Off the concrete
Staring at me with this look
That made me want to ask you if you were okay
Little moments
Like that remind me
That the big times like these
Are worth fighting for
That the big fights like these
Are worth ending
If only for the shot to have one more
Little moment
Like
A movie perfect scene in the snow
With snow ball fights, snow angels
And a snow man with coal for buttons
Eyes, mouth, sticks for arms and a scarf
But we didn't have a carrot
So you ran upstairs, broke off one of your heels
And called him Stalleto-face for a week
Little moments
Like
Burning three attempts at chicken cord en bleu
And begging the old woman on the phone
To put in one more order before they closed
And tipping $100 just to have the chance
To eat midnight fried rice on the living room floor
Because the table was full of
Foiled attempts at cooking
Little moments
Like those
So dear to me
Remind me there is no fight too big
To give up little moments with you

I fell for you
Under the stars of a cloudless night
A night the big dipper shone so bright
You could see the water spilling out of it
Falling into the little dipper
Then over flowing into our hearts
I fell for you

I fell for you
Under the soft glow of a distant street light
As we swayed on swings
And I watched the rays of light
Play hide-and-seek with your skin
Trying to catch you still enough
So it could glow you like an angel
I fell for you

I learned of you
Through back channel grape vines
And locker door vents
Four AM phone calls that left crickets jealous
Listening to our heavy breaths of in love dreams
Pass through the receivers
I learned of you

I learned of you
Through tears that might as well have been daggers
Stabbing my heart
As I wrestled your secrets from the back of your mind
Through your tear ducts
And kidnapped your true feelings
In body bags from the bottom of your heart
I learned of you

I stayed with you
When learning wasn’t fun anymore
But our hearts weren’t settled in
And the comfort of silence
Fell to the wayside of sin
And your brain made your heart feel used
And your heart made your body feel abused
And your body made my heart feel abused
I stayed with you

I stayed with you
When stars were no longer visible
Drowned out by city lights
And crickets were silenced in fear
By the sounds we made at night
And surprises and picnics
Were just apologies
And our song was just a reminder
Of what I forgot about you
I stayed with you

I fell for you
Down a flight of stairs on a rainy night
When our lips didn’t mind the company
Of staring eyes
And your ferruled eye brows
Reminded the big dipper how to shine
I fell for you

I fell for you
Barefoot in sand the sun shining down
On a comfortable day in June
Which came so soon the sun hadn’t left his mark
On our left ring fingers yet
The waves from the ocean weren’t crashing the rocks
Letting the priest preach his sermon in peace
Whose words we couldn’t hear
Staring straight into your eyes
I fell for you

I fell for you

I take pleasure in the simple things
And I know a lot of people say that
But I think a lot of people get carried away
With the idea of getting carried away
They watch movies for the special effects
Go to baseball games for the big names
And watch trains go by for the wrecks
But I take pleasure in the simple things
The other day I paced in the rain
It was summer so the warm water
Reminded me of growing up in Shanghai
Where the chemical rain would burn when it touched you
And that's a happy memory for me
I watch movies for the kisses
The Humphrey Bogart
Reach out and kiss the crap out of them kisses
The Ingrid Bergman sly, seductive kisses
The Audrey Hepburn innocent, eyes closed kisses
I go to baseball games to smell the air
Little league games, high school games,
Minor league games, professional games
It doesn't matter they all smell like dirt and leather
I like to walk by freshly mowed lawns
Because it reminds me of when I was younger
And played soccer every Saturday morning
On just cut grass
I love, love, love to watch little kids run in circles
For absolutely no reason at all
I take pleasure in the simple things
I think too often people
Try to measure the was of each day
Against the could be of every dream
Forgetting that we don't ask our dreams
To accomplish themselves between 9-5
Some people get caught up in
Trying to live their life
Like it was a scene from a dream
They drempt while they slept last night
And though sometimes life can seem like a movie
We are not producers or directors
Merely actors following our lines
Trying to feel out someone else's vision
So I find pleasure in the simple things
The parts no producer could control
The lines that aren't in the script
The prettiest rose on my bike ride home
Warm Rain
Dirt
Leather
Cut grass, little kids, and puppy dogs
Because if we limit the pleasure we find
To the greatest moments in our lives
We're never going to believe it's happening when it is
Always dreaming there could be more to our life then there is
And when we do finally believe
The only chance we'll have to smile
Will be at a memory
And we'll miss all the beauty and pleasure
The world and life
Has put in front of you and me

It's like a blind man leading a poor man
He sees the cliff coming but he doesn't mind
Grateful to have company on the way down
Thinks the cloud they'll fall through will be silver lined

It's like the teenager who just gave birth to a still born accident
It hurts real bad inside
But she's grateful that if she returns all the diapers everybody bought her
She might have enough money to buy a prom dress
Thinks the pain she feels will be silver lined

It's like the boyfriend of the young girl who just gave birth to the still born child
Grabs his cleats out the closet
Grateful he still has time to get a college scholarship
Dumped her over the phone
Said he didn't like the way her ***** *** whined
Thinks adding another drop to the bucket of pain he will never feel is silver lined

It's like a young man who works at a gas station
With dreams so big he'd have to run the world to accomplish them
Grows up, gets marrieds, gets settled, and settles
Knows the only way he'll make the TV is by beating his wife
Grateful that strangers know who he is
Thinks the jail time he's serving is silver lined

It's like the grown man who has everything the boy at the gas station ever wanted
Doesn't want it, wishes he could give it back, but can't
So he buys houses, clothes, and Cadillacs
Grateful to have enough
Thinks the silver lining on his silver Cadi is silver lined

It's like the overwhelmed twenty something year old who puts a lock on her own knife drawer
Too proud to get help
Grateful that she has a boyfriend willing to take the brunt
Of all the problems she can't see past
Thinks the inconvenience of the knife drawer is silver lined

It's like the boyfriend of the overwhelmed twenty something year old
Who takes the brunt of all the problems she can't see past
Grateful he has a key to the knife drawer
Thinks the blood on the floor will be enough
To show her there's more to the world than the problems she can't see past
Thinks his mama's heartache will be silver lined

It's like the staunch republican who got laid off last year
Now he's so broke he's on unemployment, food stamps, and TANF
Grateful the democrats were in control during the great depression
Still voted for John McCain
Thinks the bumper sticker on the back of his car is silver lined

It's like the young family started by a couple kids
Who insisted on having a couple of their own
Now they're too poor to afford but too rich for assistance
Begging their government to bail them out of something that nursery rhymes got them into
Grateful their truck didn't break down again this month
Thinking raising hungry babies is silver lined

It's like a poor man leading a blind man
Who knows the cliff is coming
Knows they're going over and doesn't really mind
Grateful to finally be in the company of someone just as blind as he is
Thinking the cloud they'll fall through is silver lined.