there were years i held
unburied but moving in undetected lingers
before i finally caught them in standstill
sore between my fingers

sore is sore and ache is ache
and i held both in silence for silences' sake
till weight made pressure and pressure made bend
I used to call them my Godsend I used to call them my Good Friend
but bend made break and break bent friend
and weight came back to make me sorry again
cause sorry meant take and take meant give
and give meant I forgive but
you didn't forgive

so came the break between real and fake
so came the merge between real and fake

you say you don't have to go there
don't haunt me like this
so good
so good
so good
because i didn't want to remember more than i should!
and if i could just stop myself yes i would, yes i would
i am so so sorry and if i could feel worse i would
and if i could feel better i would

but it's beyond letting, beyond forgetting
and the hand in all these memory choices isn't mine
the closest thing i had to control was time
the closest thing i had to sense was rhyme

here we have to choose where to store
up on surface? deep in core?
and when i keep it there, you'll finally tell me more

so you say forget and
i let it
sink deeper
ugly rivulet
down my back down my
back

come back to sink me too but
i won't let
anything that has to do with me
do with me

you know deeper isn't better you know
the same thought'll still get her

but it'll have gone deeper now
okay! yes! you're in my face! so i'll say this

yes i don't
remember it! yes it's not on the surface for me to look at it!
but i promise you
when i bury it i hear it saying
it'll come to bury me too

i just felt that i've been up brushing against all the words for a very long time
rubbing on the edge, sometimes it's sharp, usually
it's sharp. always
it's sharp.
they're stupid honestly

and i'm trying to lose myself somehow
and i remember wanting to sand away
the fact that i was another chip off the block another
boat off the dock
another piece of lint another stick of chalk
here's a space here's a space where we can talk

and i wanna start this walk
past the doors i hear it knock

(and i'm going to get on a bus and it's not going home)

and i have been wondering, i said
i have been wondering.

what have you been wondering?
at a time like this?

at a time like this?
I've been wondering if this is close enough for it.

who's going to know?
who has to know.

if this is close enough to feel and if this is
close enough to think and
if there's enough air here
to take you between now and then.

is this what I could be doing to survive? is this what i can live
in between. between the unsaid said and the unseen scene

i can live in-between the times, i said. in-between the times / hoping that since it's been spoken / this stupid spell's gone broken

but first we gotta
hold onto the rope
hold onto these cords
cause they're asking me
you wanna live in the spaces of your words?

i said if i could if i COULD
(oh God if I could)

and there's no hope here not with them
so I say a prayer and I say it fast
cause I need this beautiful life to last
and I need this beautiful hand to hold and I need to stop this terror fold and I need to
let this prayer go
into the air
God I'm so tense here hoping someone out there is gonna care
that I'm sending
for sweet beautiful survival yes have it
Sent please
bring me back to the last Good Place i went please
let me wake up the next morning and hear the Jack
and hack and hack he's going to go I know
this I know
hack hack hack he Went
the last Good Time that we spent
hack hack hack he went
at all the pretty wood
in this nice neighborhood

and i promise myself the next time i tell myself
to open up i'm gonna stay closed
and the next time you tell me to feel
the warmth
i'm gonna stay cold

I don't know what we like to imagine but
I like to imagine that we like to imagine
that nothing ever happened before
the writer put pen to paper, that
the world held still for him, that the world
laid down for him, that the world
raised her arms in open welcome and teeming grace:
here lay your head here i'll hold your face

soon i said we'll be on our way
and soon you said we'll forget today. forget the way
soft-spoken half-hearted things started to mean more when they poured
out into the open air that was between us and all of a sudden we found ourselves waiting on
    the next july-day friday
when we'll be under the same summer bright
light in my eye soft skin this one bruises easy this one burns fast but
we spend enough time dreaming to make it last
dreaming back and in and out again
       soon to remember and later to forget and i'm praying july
finishes with rain and i'm praying august is a full-blown hurricane and
i'm hoping in september you'd still know my name and i'm hoping
october is not too cool for us to be cool with each other.
but so long after these dreams i cling to knowing this story
like it is part of a past i can change

she's here, light. came to pick me up in
gliding synchrony, follow me into melody
     sinking symphony of dangerous dreams and i'm done here after
     i confess that i went into dark rooms looking for her light

here, light. i wish i was holding her in my arms
cause this emotional toll is gonna break the bank
all the redemption come to speak
as world turned black to straining bleak

all i see is    an angel without wings
holding me   closer than ever before    
saying i'm sorry i     don't want you to feel this anymore
and it makes me cry harder
cause she's whispering vows to me under her breath
promising nothing like this is ever going to take me away
   but it will

and even then, my fall doesn't come from being let go

here. holds you closer  still
     till you know the colors
in the colors of her eyes

she brushes my hair from my face and says
          everything about you is just so soft
but times are tough for the dreamers
     and nothing can be replaced

twelve years of this. i said twelve years of this
why were you here all along
    don't you remember how it was before
don't you remember when it started
      she said i'm so sorry
i'm so sorry

                 i love her, i love her
but why is she still here
and who sent her to be my angel?
      the best friend that would spin herself into the same oblivion
just to sit against the wall with me    heavy, sunken all confused
she asked me if i was crying i said i've been dying
to prove to you that i'm trying

just trying to fill my lungs with enough air to ask her
why she still loves me    when i'm like this

but she knows i won't say
    cause i was part of the night and she was part of the day
and even though she owed me nothing  beyond what she's said and done
she still held me and
told me: baby bell i know from time to time    
  i'll hear your chime

and your crying doesn't annoy me. and you whisper cause you're delicate
and you are sensitive to the world. i can hear how deep you breathe. you are alive.
      don't tell me you're dead. don't tell me you can't feel it anymore. when it's too quiet i still hear it
when it's too quiet i still feel you being sad
        and i don't care.
i don't care if you're loud. always.
i don't care. even if you were
            just a bell tolling at 3am or 5.
even if you were. even as you are. always.
i am proud.
you are mine and you are safe and for everything you're sorry for,
     i'm not.

in the corner she put her  hand on my face.
and stared at me for the longest time before
she put the other one too. i wasn't sure where this was going
she had cupped my face and pushed it up a little

before she took a deep breath and said you are a baby right now
i told her i was thirteen
but she said it doesn't matter
growing up is painful
the future is painful
the past is painful
the world suffers every day from
a thousand afflictions, baby.

i said don't call me that
i'm not.
she said you don't know anything
i said i do. i know this.

she said the world suffers every day
every week every hour
even things we can't bear to think, the world endures persistently.
the world overcomes.

she said you need to wait this out.
it gets worse and then it gets better
      i said how long
she said it doesn't matter

you're going to grow up and it's going to hurt
and there's not a thing you can do about it.

i told her to watch me
she said she will. from a strait jacket.

and that's when she told.

i hated how all her advice was useless in this way
and how she always ******* me over in the end anyhow

oh, here's a feeling
we're going to draw it out from the middle
it'll feel new it'll feel new
give it time
it'll feel new

when the heat gets too high it starts to feel cold
well, that's what you ought to wait for when things start to get old
if you want to unknow what you already do so well
if you want to unlearn what you could be blind and still spell

then give it time
it'll feel new

the day comes in and the day comes out
with all nighttime live and let live, it used to promise me
it used to promise me and i wasn't always this naive but
i used to believe in its potential and it used to probably believe in mine
and what gave me away finally was time

who knew a man could change who knew a girl could too
under that guidance and i always wished that back then i too knew
but vines don't wither vines grow up
and if i had learned one thing it's that people don't shut up

or they do and you make them talk again
before sympathy gives and
they let you in
halfway back in
but who's letting me in isn't in essence letting me win
and you're not the same person who kicked me out
and that's who i wanted to love me

and i know there's some part of you shutting yourself up

i know there's some part of you.