The Long Walk Home

You walked away.
My heels click
As I turn around.
Now I'm crossing the street
I kissed the ground
When you used to walk it
But ground becomes futile
When we're not covering it
And now there's nowhere solid
To stay.

Just wanted something real
But "real" is now the fantasy.
Still I can't forget that alternate reality
Where we used to talk.
I'm tired of one way streets
One way tickets.
Spinning my wheels.
Starting over again.
Checking the clock.
The lights change.
And you've changed.

Crossing the street,
It's all so heavy.
Instead of bending we're breaking.
Waging war on gravity.
Did you mean what you said
I can't decipher it
Lately it's like
We speak different languages
Lately it's like I've forgotten how to speak.
The only word I know is grief.

We're the lie of the day.
The special on the menu,
Under mistakes.
Turn the corner
Walk past the man playing guitar
Who has learned that logic won't save your heart.
And how change spares few,
Just want to sit next to him
And sing out those blues
Send them off to another day.
Another time where love found a way.

Up the staircase,
With all the lights burnt out.
I'm almost home,
But I've got so far to go.

Walk in the door,
The radio reminds me,
That life goes on.
The world hasn't stopped.
And that I'm not the only one,
Who's looked,
Hoped,
Ended up lost.
For not being alone,
Things sure are lonely.

But that radio says I shouldn't worry,
That the bottom line is,
I can replace you through e-harmony.
Fantastic.
Too bad I'm not much for accepting the bottom line.
And the sweet irony of that
Makes me laugh until I'm crying.
Suddenly it's broken on the floor,
And I'm in pieces in the doorway.
In my mind it's all taking shape.
You walked away.
You walked away.
You walked away.

Four years and three heartsrings later our heroine finally collapses (having eaten every line she might have sang to you)

Let me tell you a story
Suspended in lonely at 20,000 feet.
Day before thanksgiving, the day before my birthday.
19 years this week.
Black hair, blue eyes, a smile to die for -
I could have easily.
But we cast our fates
Along different slates
Erasing chalk lines behind us.
Sneaking off in the distance
Spending stolen kisses
Not quite sure how we got there
Drawing new lines in marker

I climbed aboard
Your sinking ship with eager lips
Still the band played on.
Every mistake starts with Texas
Texas fights with California
The girl is stumbling blindly
searching cities for her heart.
You keep insisting -
Saying how you'll miss me.
Shields and tears are falling.
Cause I'm not much of an enemy
And I fucking hate goodbyes.

So good morning hangover
I spin in the shower
You're still sleeping peacefully
as I gather my things.
I kiss you sharply
You feel so empty
A familiar melody
I'd gladly die in your arms to be
reborn in your heart.

I bite my cigarette
And kill my conscience
Why is it every time I try to dream
I just end up with the sting of glitter in my eyes?
You found a place inside my head
I shared cloves and a smile
And you your bed.
Champagne nights and sober regrets.
I left my heart in San Francisco
It goes the way the wind blows
Chilled til balled fists and sweet kisses
Somehow all taste the same.

So Merry Christmas,
It's years later for all of us
And in spite of it,
Some things never change.
You're drowning your sorrows
And kicking in windows,
You think you're a cowboy.
I think you're a ghost.

I trace your hipbones
Because my tongue knows
How the song goes-
Exactly what to do
Each time it fails to speak.
I FUCKING LOVE YOU -
I'll die without you!!
I'll make this up to you
if only in tongue flicks and silence
witty banter - warm kisses
quiet love and near misses
Keeping all I should have told him,
Locked behind bedroom eyes.

If I Only had a Heart

i work on statistics i can use.
i understand, really i do.
its just the function of your love,
is it greater than or equal to mine?
suddenly i'm out of time, out of it, out of my mind
as i try to quantify what your love means to me.
i guess when it all boils down
my heart gave up - went underground
some things are better left in stone.
you see without him i'm alone.
yea he'll always be my home.

(refrain)
and i'm alone i'm a ghost
with pleading eyes and wind swept hair
and i'm drowning because
im stuck in the shadows of this nightmare
and the sun won't come out
and i can't turn around
and you can't help me now

i don't pick up the phone anymore.
fall makes me feel alone, anymore.
im so damn sad and it has nothing to do with you.
and i've breathed two packs of cigarettes
and still
my heads such a fucking mess
i calm myself with all the lies i've loved
and sometimes i forget to breathe
they wonder is she a woman or is she machine?
it must be oil pouring from her eyes.
girls like that don't cry.

(refrain)

and your body sticks to me like glue
but your eyes are bound to tell the truth
they say please dont let me go,
please let me go, don't go, wait, hold me.
and you're drunk again you said her name,
but you told me you loved me so its all the same
i don't care who i am as long as i am yours
and you actually thought i could break your heart?
you cracked my ribs - let the breaking start
my eyes beggining you
to start telling the truth

(refrain)

and then i met another man
he said he cared and he took my hand
the summer told me he would never leave
and we drank tequilla every night
we'd go to bed
didn't fight
i'd rented him a portion of my soul
but the rest of me belonged to you
and you never realized but i swear its true
a part of my heart beats inside your chest
see it likes being with you best.

(refrain)

"he's such a liar" i tell myself
and i picture you trapped in the hell
where people go when they decieve themselves
and i imagine that your tombstone reads
killer bees and leprosy,
couldnt fuck your head up half as hard as me
and i breathe it in and miss you more
wasted again and a laid out on the floor
the thought of your smile is eating me alive.
and in my head i'm calling you
but i just can't seem to get through
somewhere i know i'm better off alone.
but i can't help missing home.

(refrain)

Smoke Signals

who feels like a ghost - who touches down from coast to coast then floats away again, content to live, rewind, lose her mind, but manages the best of friends to pass the time?

we laugh when they think anything matters, they're wrong and we couldn't be sadder - i mean it couldn't be sadder. we're asking different questions but finding the same answers everytime. we could just do the math but then it won't rhyme. so we'll sing it with the windows down and for three and a half minutes we're alive.

then we're sober all over our beds alone, can't pick up a bottle or pick up our phones. each cigarette leaves it's mark, we're living in halftime throwing up smoke signs worlds apart. nobody gets broken because we're to stubborn to say fuck it and just rip the stiches open.

a lovers touch, a cigarette kiss, watching the sky through the rain, so much to miss you dull the pain with a hit that you can't take anymore so you're just bored. different actors, same play. different morning, same day. i love you, (damn it) get away.

you're up driving late you can't go home, the cd skips the radiator moans, pavement spilts, another hour to go. remember you touching my face, meeting my stare, your fingers are blades when they aren't even there. when they are they plant hydrogen bombs in my brain. pain (love), pain (love), pain. and nothing remains.

skin feels too heavy it's holding me in, want to become the puddle i feel like i am so we cuddle but its too much. life like cigarettes, a violent glow then dust. i am the puddle that fell through the cracks, broken trying to handle love, trying to give a fuck back.

where was i - i don't remember? i was pretending we had a goodbye and trying to learn how to fly, the bruises from last time still tender. can you feel me now, am i touching somehow? cursed with paper wings, a love for pretty things, and a brain that never slows to a crawl, there's a flashback from the top of a building, a sunset, a fall.

Kevin Smith Dating Tips

the moon is out
im driving by our old apartment
for a second i swear i see your car outside
but it's just in my mind
i ran into your old bestfriend
from back when the only thing keeping me alive was
the beer in my hand
and the gleam in your eye
and the smarts to know if i screamed real loud
it would drown out the sound
as our hearts lay breaking on the ground
and "as i lay dying" was just a book
but it summed things up pretty well
turning 19
reading william faulkner in first class
on a train to hell
it took 16 years
now it's been 25 months
three long summers and falls together and all i got was numb
and now
you've got you new friends
i've got a razor blade, some lose ends, and a degree.
and we have changed
but somewhere you and i will always be the same.
"summer wind was always our song" was always our song,
i mean we picked iou one galaxy,
but it really didnt fit.
"oh and what I wouldn't give just to kiss your lips again, hold your hand next to my heart, wake up with you in our apartment"
Was always more of a hit than a miss.
summer days spent in a haze of
rilo kiley, comic books, and pissed off looks
and getting annoyed at the guy on x-play
growing up too fast
holding grudges reliving the past
taking turns spitting the lyrics of
popular mechanics for lovers at each other
"just because he loves you too, he wouldn't ever take a bullet for you!"
met with some variation of fuck off
or you started it
or you held her hand so i can sleep with him.
GET OVER IT.
im so sorry.
love don't come that often,
but it doesnt leave too easy either
cause those kind of sunday mornings are looooong gone
now if i want to sing about sunday
ill turn up a johnny cash song
sing along about beer for breakfast
and having one more for dessert.
they lied when they said time would repair the nerves.
the cigarettes burns in my car have a better chance of repairing themselves first.
remember when we read "blankets"?
i mean we were both high
so we probably dont actually rememeber reading it
spread out on my bed
book in our hands
smoke in our heads
but we thought it was so fitting and perfect
how their love wasnt working but they were leaving footprints
in the snows of their soul
and you decided it was us
and for once i couldnt argue
or call you an asshole
and that was a good thing
because that meant you probably weren't calling me a bitch
and that footprint thing sort of made our love feel infinite
and for once i was wasnt the kid in the book slitting his wrists
because life was too hard
but charlie screaming from the window of the car
i bought you that book for your birthday when i was 17
and it ended up in your aunts basement
which is basically another metaphor for our relationship
there wasn't anything about the protagonist
screwing his ex-girlfriend
so maybe the plot failed to catch your attention
J is for pink bullets tangled up in kite strings
o is for the kind of bruises that don't show up on skin
S is for seeing through you, you are a fake
H is for counting every single day, stealing lines from my favorite songs and tacking on lines so things will rhyme.
sort ofanyway.
kevin smith was our john hughes
generations ahead still caught
teenage blues
and teenage kicks all through the night
the buzzcocks always had it right
and us
chasing amy meets the breakfast club
ben affleck and molly ringwald
maybe if i had been a lesbian, or if you'd kissed me in detention there'd have been less variables?
Eighteen, listening to death cab in my car outside kmart
talking about the future of politics
and lifespans of our hearts
yours had a do no resistate order
but we tried til all our ribs were broken
maybe someday youll forgive me
maybe someday my heart will get off my sleeve
and my chest wont feel so open
now that i've learned to shut my mouth
and fixed the parts of me that were broken

Hey Rivers...

Hey Rivers can you help me out?

I'm in need of a song about

False starts

And broken parts of pictures

So I can cut him out

And sing about it so

I don't have to think about it

You know oh, I know you do.

Hey Rivers I've been thinking about

Crushing his toenails

And the good life

And I think you've got it right

But I've got it all wrong

Make-up on and make-up songs

Just aren't doing it for me

Hey Rivers I need a savior

A four chord wonder

The guts for bad behavior

I don't believe in god

So you're the closest thing

I've got

I'm confessing to my speakers

But they don't want to talk.

This is the part where it starts to rock out

And your voice gets real high

And makes me want to die I think

I'm going to make it after all

Yea, we're going to make it after all.

Hey Rivers, maybe baby I

Can stop from going crazy

Go to bed real early or

Stay up drinking coffee

Reading Chuck Palhanuik

About how on a long enough timeline

Everyone I love will just end up dead

And buried.

And this is the part where

I start to scream and shout

My friends think I'm going crazy

Because I think so loud

I think I'm going to make it after all.

Yea, we're gonna make it after all.

Now we need a bridge and a note that

Doesn't quit

Maybe a guitar riff

Maybe kick a speaker

Maybe throw a fit

Oh why oh why oh do I

Walk with this tightrope

Wrapped around my windpipe?

I'm stupid and strangling

When I should be letting go

Hey Rivers hope this song makes sense

Hope it falls out a window

Hope it jumps off a bridge

Hope he's there to catch me

Or that he's dreaming of me.

Hope I go deaf before things really

Start to get real ugly

Really, I just want him to still love me.

This is the part where I crawl under a rock.

And smoke a couple packs just so I don't have to talk.

And I think I'm gonna make it after all.

Yea, we're gonna make it after all.

Hey Rivers, don't know what I'm doing

The feelings just get stonger

I need something fiercer

I caught a butterfly but I don't want it to die.

Or is the butterfly me?

I'm pinned to the cardboard,

But I don't think I want free.

Hey Rivers, I think Cupid stole my spine

It was there yesterday

And every other time

But I can't seem to sit up straight

And all I do is wait

I can't stand up on my own

Or push people away

Stupid cupid, what's a girl to do

I used to be such a hardass

Now my knees feel like glue

This is the part where I pretend I have no heart

Maybe run away, wishing I could stay.

But I think I'm going to make it after all.

Yea, we're gonna make it after all.

We're gonna make it after all.

This is how I say I love you.

Cause I don't want to laugh for no one else.

No I don't want to laugh for no one else.

The Vampire Blues

I have to go now.
Stop trying to sell yourself.
Like you're something different.
You want to act the part
At least say it with some feeling.
You want this to mean something
We'll just end up broken.
So listen hard baby doll.
I'm done, you don't mean nothin'.

You say you've changed
But you're a bad chameleon
If this was the Discovery Channel
You'd already have been eaten.
So just get in your car
Pack up your stupid books
Your fake ass looks
I've got a mind like a python
And you're just something
To snack on.

I want your tongue in my mouth
And your face on my neck
You can be damn certain
That's all that you'll get.
So let me summarize
To relieve some confusion
You're a worn out record
And I need a new one
Your song's getting old
And I don't want to fake it
So you'd better take back your heart
Cause I'm dying to break it.

No I don't care cause
You're just good for smudging lipstick
The only promise I'll make
Is that I swear I won't miss this.
You knew if you crossed the line
That I'd be taking you down with me.
I'm telling you
Say you'll bring me the moon,
You're getting a surprise in your whiskey.
Gee babe, I really hope you like arsenic.
See babe, I keep a straight face
And play a cool hand
To save me from heartache.

When you go to sleep tonight
Im gonna nail your coffin lid shut.
Surround yourself with stupid girls
Cause silly boy I've had enough.
Your smooth lines make me
Roll my eyes.
Hope you get hit by a big truck.
Or eaten by a giant squid.
Ps. your fucking music sucks.
I'm finally saying it's over
I need warm arms to hold me
Cause you've been dead to me
For months now
Yea, your heart beats far too slowly.

Anyway you know
I just say it cause I like you
But god damn - all you men
You better know I'm getting sick of you
I hope this makes your eyeliner run
While you sit in your parents basement
Worshipping Morissey
And jacking off to Something Corporate.
Oh darling make no mistake
I told you not to cross me.
Sugar pie honey bunch
I never pretended to come easy.

Always in Circles

I'll let my hair down
Let the words fall
Shut the night out
Think we could have it all
For a moment
Or a lifetime
But for now's fine.
I'll let my hair down.

You look like a good kisser
You look a like good kisser
You look like a moment
That I lost somewhere in time.
Between the days
That try to take my dreams away
And the nights where
I sit here and I'm lonely

I know how much I miss this
I know how long I've waited
To feel anything but numb
But now I'm sitting pretty
Back against a wall
The only thing that breaks my fall
And I don't know anything
About things anymore

So I'll let my hair down
Let the dark fall
Sit here waiting
For something to end it all
Just this moment
Or this life time
But this night's mine
I'll let my hair down

After decades nothings changed
Maybe its the scenery thats still the same
But we're just not meant to notice
That we've come full circle.
I wonder if all that we get
Are beautiful snapshots in a life of regret
And you look so beautiful now that I'm shaken
I guess that life's what we make it

And I'll let my hair down
Let the words fall
Shut the night out
Think we could have it all
For a moment
Or a lifetime
But for now's fine.
I'll let my hair down.

The Usual Post-midnight Melodrama

This is the last time I fall for you.
Cause I love the way you say goodnight,
But I hate the way you say goodbye.

This is the last time I fall for you
Count ceiling tiles to get me through.
How long has this been going on?
How fucked up is this all?

So walk on by.
Close the door.
Leave me with the memories.
That I don’t know what to do with.

A smile cuts more than a scream.
And you’re leaving me bleeding.
All over the bedsheets.

There’s always price for laughter.
We pay in blood to keep ourselves happy.
There’s always a price.

I’ve grown tired of talking.
So keep walking.

Clock on the wall says half past two.
The ticket in my wallet says I’m just passing through.
And I’m done.
Passing through to you.

And I’m done.
I’m done,
Falling for you.

Poison Apple Mixer

You can keep your poison apples
Your looks could kill me faster
But oh oh darlin what a
What a wonderful way to go
And I'm ten feet deep in snow drifts
Feeling numb and mindless
This world is taking me
But I won't go down with it
Cause I got a reason.
Mmmhmm.
To push cold winds away.

And oh my appetites
Gone missing
And I can't oh no I can't
Speak without shaking
What's a girl to do
I'm so hung up on you.
But I oh, I think
I think that I like it.

And I've never belonged to anyone
So what's the problem?
The wind, the wind it carries me a-way.
And I feed on memories that don't feel like
Mine to keep
But for once could I oh could I
Just love something?
And I keep waiting for a sign.
To point the way to better days.
Cause all the ones I know
Point me everywhere but
Where I wanna go
But I guess I'll figure
It out or die trying.

And oh my appetites
Gone missing
And I can't oh no I can't
Speak without shaking
What's a girl to do
I'm so hung up on you.
But I oh, I think that I like it.

And there's a price to be had
For laughing
You learn to pay
Yea you pay in blood
To be happy.
And life gets hard sometimes
When you're drinking all the time
Buying slow death
To mix with
Warm bodies for comfort.
But I got a reason to keep smiling.
Cause I just threw my cares away.
A nights are hard sometimes.
With cold words stuck on rewind
But someday
I know I'll get away.

And oh my appetites
Gone missing
And I can't oh no I can't
Speak without shaking
What's a girl to do
I'm so hung up on you.
But I oh, I think that I like it.

And why do we keep
With these distractions?
New loves to
Carry our thoughts away?
From old lives
And ugly lies
So we can sleep at night.
And forget all our old
Distractions.
There's a warm body
On the other side of the pillow
But he knows he's just passing through.
Cause there's no room in
My heart for lovers
Just there to move my thoughts
To something new.

And I got a boy who says he
Loves me.
And I can tell he's playing
For keeps.
But I don't like his eyes
Or the way he apologizes,
But I sure love the way
He says goodnight.
And I need someone
Oh to hold me
While I wait for better love.
And I'm wishing
On the sky
For some kind of appetite
That will make me hungry
For someone who's nicer than I am.

But I got a reason to keep smiling
Cause I know the end is far away
And I've got lots of time
To meet a love of mine
That won't leave my chest cold
Or wide open.
So hey baby
You know I kinda like you
And well I,
I think you like me too.
And maybe I'll wake up sometime
With you there by my side
And just maybe you won't
Just be someone to pass
The nights with.

Understanding Distance

Moved the big city
Going to make myself a name
Cause the one I have's not working
My heart's just not the same
And hotel rooms get lonely
When you're hanging by the phone
And all those lights are blinding
When you look out on your own.

You asked me for the truth
The truth is that I just don't know
Don't even know the zip code
Can't hope to know my soul
And I keep hiding from the people
That want to know it all
And remembering the old times
As a new life comes to call

And this evening's much too quiet
And my pulse beats far too fast
And what I'm learning
For the future
Is that we are not our pasts.

And all the songs get lonely
When I'm singing without you
My hands are grasping nothing
But my guitar, a beer, and a picture or two.
And lately I've been needing
To get far away from here.
But I still see you smiling
Wish you were here.

The signs out in the distance
Keep me on road
Keep calling out the answers
That I used know
And you say you've missed me lately
And I say "Darling, I'm in hell"
And that the love supposed to catch me
Couldn't save me from myself.

And I'm clinging to the question
That you never asked
While understanding distance
See, we're miles from the past
And as the line grows quiet
My sighs get quiet too.
We both know that we've murdered
What we never meant to lose.

Now the gaze that used to hold you
Is fixed upon the wall
Tracing familiar outlines
I'm screaming all the good lines
Of our favorite songs

And all the songs get lonely
When I'm singing without you
My hands are grasping nothing
But a guitar, a beer, and a picture or two.
And lately I've been needing
To get far away from here.
But I still see you smiling
Wish you were here.

Wish I knew where home was
Cause I don't think that I'm there,
Is it hiding in somebody?
To be met in later years?
Still I've been struck by lightening
Though the chances are so small
And electricity will kill you
If you can't take the fall

I'm staring out the window
I'm looking in myself
Barely holding it together,
Begging for some help.
But this music's far to distant
From the things I feel inside
And I need some inspiration
Not a fucking lullaby.

Cause when I try to sleep
In a hotel bed alone
Can't face the desperation
Or the implications
Of dreaming on my own

And all the songs get lonely
When I'm singing without you
Wish these hands were holding more than
My guitar, a beer, and a picture of you.
And lately I've been needing
To get far away from here.
But I still see you smiling
Wish you were here.

And sometimes I'd give anything
To meet someone just like me
Imaginative and evil,
But lets his heart live on his sleeve.
And sometimes in the nighttime
Finds himself drowning in his tears
To the melodies
That he can't leave.
Wish you were here.