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John Darnielle Dec 2021
I hope that our few remaining friends
Give up on trying to save us
I hope we come up with a failsafe plot
To ******* the dumb few that forgave us
I hope the fences we mended
Fall down beneath their own weight
And I hope we hang on past the last exit
I hope it's already too late
And I hope the junkyard a few blocks from here
Someday burns down
And I hope the rising black smoke carries me far away
And I never come back to this town
Again in my life
I hope I lie
And tell everyone you were a good wife
And I hope you die
I hope we both die

I hope I cut myself shaving tomorrow
I hope it bleeds all day long
Our friends say it's darkest before the sun rises
We're pretty sure they're all wrong
I hope it stays dark forever
I hope the worst isn't over
And I hope you blink before I do
Yeah I hope I never get sober
And I hope when you think of me years down the line
You can't find one good thing to say
And I'd hope that if I found the strength to walk out
You'd stay the hell out of my way
I am drowning
There is no sign of land
You are coming down with me
Hand in unlovable hand
And I hope you die
I hope we both die
There may come a day, as I say, when you may have cause to sing this song. I hope that that day never comes. At the same time, I know that it will. Let’s not kid each other. You're going to have a very bad relationship someday. It's not just gonna ****, it's gonna **** ***. You’re going to make up a little chart of all the ***** that it *****. It’ll be your ***-chart on your bedroom wall. Your significant other will say, 'What is this?' and you will say 'Oh, they’re butts. Just butts.' and they'll say, 'The hell they are; that's an ***-chart!' Where will you be then, O Sinner? As the great worm that never dies curls its slimy folds around your naked heart, you will need a song to sing. This is that song.
John Darnielle Dec 2020
I'm going to do what I like
I'm going to live how I want
I'm going to build myself a great estate
With lots of statues out front

Choirs from the Curtis Institute
Singing me to sleep
Wake up and worship the great gold sheep

I'm going to walk the pathways of the ancients
I'm going to let my name be known
I'm going to seek the wild haunts of this world
And carve a place out all my own

Heat up the iron until it glows
Burn the brand so deep
Wake up and worship the great gold sheep

There's only one, splendid and fine
The ages attest it's wondrous design
You and me stand somehow above the fray
And name everyone who's throwing their chance away

I'm going to write my name on everything
I'm going to leave a lasting legacy
And when my body's thrown with great force from a window
The dogs will fight for whatever's left of me

Shallow grave among the weeds
Where the pale worms creep
Wake up and worship the great gold sheep
John Darnielle Dec 2020
Toward the tail-end of the age that's almost finished
Where the highway starts to crack and nobody fixes it
I was wandering through an undeveloped tract
Out near the ocean
One-hundred acres, we will build to suit
See what there is to see before it's gone
Somebody's always just about to put some kind of awful plan in motion

Eastern red cedars,
and the pines
And suddenly an elevated stone slab
in what must have been a clearing once
Try to recognize the signals and the signposts
My curiosity
Will likely always get the best of me

It's like that one thing
My Dad kept trying to tell me
As the twilight
Inched its way on up his body
Get out! Get out! Get out! Get out!

Well of course I climbed atop the slab and I lay down on it
I am a child
I had my face toward the sky lying there in the sun with both my eyes closed
Woke up in near darkness
What the hell is wrong with me
Volunteer pines in the hundreds in the dusk like military tent poles

Let my eyes adjust
Try to read the markings on the slab
Weird alphabets I felt sure I hadn't seen just before I passed out
Stars growing brighter
Me looking up
Like a lobster in a cage down in the depths beneath the bottom of a glass boat

And I heard a voice
From somewhere out beyond the free fall
Like a captive soldier
He's just trying to warn his brothers
Get out! Get out! Get out! Get out!
John Darnielle May 2020
Let the camera pull back 'til the fullness
of the frame is clear and plain
Peer into the screen until you see it all
like a vision in a crystal ball
Let it all fill with smoke
Is this somebody's idea of a joke

Let the fixer work until the silver's
washed away and take the
picture from the tray
Look hard at what you see and then
remember you and me
and let the truth spring free

Like a jack-in-the-box
Like a hundred-thousand cuckoo clocks
From the Oregon corners
To the Iowa corn
To the rooms with the heat lamps
where the snakes get born

Crawl through the tunnel and follow,
follow the light northwest
See that young man who dwells inside
his body like an uninvited guest
See the tunnel twist
Clutch your birthright in your fist
Let the camera do its ***** work
down there in the dark
Sink low, rise high,
and bring back some blurry pictures to
remember all your darker moments by

Permanent bruises on our knees
Never forget what it felt like
to live in rooms like these
From the California coastline
To the Iowa corn
To the rooms with the heat lamps
where the snakes get born

— The End —