the cost of happiness is sorrow
it's a "buy in now, pay for later" deal.
to experience true happiness is also
inevitably to know it's complete absence, "loss", to feel...

a one year anniversary of the death of a man
winter's coming on again.
it's getting colder out,
i stand before you now... beaten down by the wind.

i pack up your pictures and put them away
i wanna play this guitar that you gave to me...

i'll be out late with friends tonight,
and not miss you 'till i'm alone.
i burned everything i ever wrote about you,
deleted your number from my phone...

i'm writing this song now just to get it out.
from your life so easily i was just cut out ..?

wanna just say, "Baby, we had a good run,"
but feel too much loss to act like something was won.

drinkin' tonight at all the places "you and i" will never see..
hangin' out with friends we don't share, so we don't meet..

every letter and sweet word spill'd  
all the songs written and the one's that you will
lines of devotion and feelings unconstrained
emotions spent on strangers who betrayed
----------------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------------­------------
you wasted your "i love you's"
                                                   on somebody else
they went and broke your heart
                                                   a pain you shouldn't have felt
now i'm standing here lonely
                                                   heart left on the bottom shelf

'cause you wasted all "i love you's"
                                                   on somebody else
------------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------------­----------------
understanding the struggle of giving too much away
i understand the reasons why you'd feel so afraid
writing this down now 'cause i've too much to say
but i'm begging you now, please don't keep me at bay

...

how can i convince you that i'm for real?
how shall i explain the way that i feel?
you bring the sunshine after the rain
and every time i look at you i fall all over again
-----------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------------­-----------------
but you've wasted your "i love you's"
                                                          on somebody else
who went and broke your heart,
                                                 a pain you shouldn't have felt
now mine is yours to claim,  
                                                 but you've placed it on the shelf
"cause you wasted your "i love you's"
                                                                ­           on somebody else

i loved her completely
and i was broken completely

i know she loved me
but was scared to commit it

but i am content...
because i loved her completely,
something i never thought i could do again.

i bled it and let it out of myself
wrote it and said it to be put on a shelf
now it's blazin' hot, these words are warming

why does it light my heart ablaze
like the fire in this pit.?
wish i had the answers, but i haven't thought of 'em yet.
------------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------------­----------------
there's just too much to say
and not enough time in the day
night falls long, in her shadow i'll stay

it's just another four-letter word
that i can't get off of my tongue.
it's just another hopeless condition,
a bell to be un-rung.
--------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------------­--------------------
heart felt lines from a paperless book
notes were made over feelings shook
ripped and burned, but never really understood...

how can a word make such a phrase
express the feelings i'm missin'..?
i'm still here holding my pen, guess i haven't learned my lessons.
--------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------------­--------------------
there's just too much to say
and not enough time in the day
night falls long, in her shadow i'll pray

it's just another four-letter word
that i can't get off of my tongue.
just another four-letter word ,
like "**** - **** - **** - or ****"

head full of hair, like the red on my son’s head,
red like my face, I wonder of the blood that did circulate
around the tumor that formed just behind her eye

the red i saw
like a man going blind, eyes irritated at the sun’s presence
bloodshot like mine, with anger on those drunken nights I cursed a god in heaven

I wonder if my baby saw red like I did
when, my eyes burning, filled with tears at the news of her death.
Those lovely red curls that now make a pillow for her final place of rest..







© 2013 Patrick W. Hamilton
All rights reserved

It strums my heart strings like an open chord
salt on a wound already so sore
i need a drink of water, finding no relief
it just may pull me under if sugar wasn't so sweet

I wanna hop a fright car and come back here never
I'd scar up the landscape and think of something clever
wanna slit my brain open, expose what's there inside
strap myself to a rocket and see if I could fly

It crowds my mind like a parasite
cigarette burns day into night
no windy relief from this damp nasty heat
it plagues my mind like a back alley creep

I wanna run so far away that I never need to hide
wanna cut out my feelings until all pain subsides
wanna close my eyes forever, stay locked inside my mind
dream of things so simple and never have to cry

Open my arms out and fall into deep black
float out on the ocean and never come back
i wanna disappear before you get home …
no letter, note or sign that I've ever been anywhere but GONE.