Small Brown Bike

Cabin in the woods. Where I feel isolation. Where I feel separation from everything. But my mind travels distances that my body can't make. I find it hard to sleep with this oncoming dream, I recite, "I see you." This room sinks below. Underground tonight. Is your room sinking too? I lie in the hide away bed. An attempt for the best to awake my sleeping life. Death is contagious. Death is courageous. The phone was crying tonight, but I can't answer its call. (Wake up, wake up) With a purpose to react to this loss of response. "I'll find you."

I sit above the rooms of our home.
Expose myself to a loss that I've known.
No clouds exist in this blue sky.
I use my sense for the first time.
My hands hold on to the horizon.
Can't catch my breath, so I stop trying.
This small part of me counts down mathematically.
It will bury me with you.
I am here for just a short time.
You've been gone for this stretch of my life.
Please live through me.
Now this tragedy becomes reality to our family.
I am here for just a short time.
You've been gone for this stretch of my life.
This small part of me counts down mathematically.
It will bury me with you.

Remember when you said that things would never change.
You liar. Because these days things in my life, they don't stay the same.
You changer. Driving (at you). Thinking (of you).
Tears scream down my face.
Trying (for you). Talking (to you).
An incoherent mess.
Pulled up to your place with a script fully prepared.
I'm acting. You stared with no applause.
A broken leg review. I'm failing. (Failing with you)
A drawer full of nothing, except old birthdays and business cards.
And photos that seem like history.
A history worth nothing.
Like a future with no friend.

"Let's start this summer before it ends," is what she said.
"Let's hit the road and live this life before we're dead," he said.
To give is to take. To leave is to break.
Opposing opinions are curling waves.
Misunderstand. Ask then demand.
The situation must go as planned.
I'm at the crossroad of puppetry and pulmonary.
Let's stop this fall before the climb becomes too much to bear.
(Please look at me and listen carefully) This is mine.
(A compromise consists of give and take) We must understand.
Our clenched fists turn to open hands.
It takes more to give than to demand.
I understand. No more demand.
Let's let the waves wash these prints from the sand.
(I should appreciate what he's done for me) Respect is key.
(We love like family and treat like enemies) We must understand.
(Clenched fists turn to open hands. It takes more to give)

I'll take Sunday night with a blanket over this old, dark house.
An occasional ruffle, but nothing like you or even this memory of you.
Do you save our pictures like I do?
Home is where you die.
We we're like a lullaby.
You hit like a hammer now.
You used to lean into me.
Now you stand away.
Those wheels just push right by now.
Just a few feet from my life.
If I leaned into their mess.
I'd see you in hell. See you in hell.
You looked straight at me,
then laughed and said so honestly,
"You're so dead now."
As I thought to myself, "Is that really true?"
Because I killed you in my head.
You can too.
There's no second chance.

I fall asleep to the breeze from your open window. And your computer screen lit the room just right. The last thing from your mouth sheds light. (Goodnight) You are the one who calls my arms. Wave from home and sound alarms. The want is angled from afar. And I don't want to leave, especially with this breeze. (But my ambition teases me) This truth be known. I shout it in this song. My song to say forget where I've gone wrong. Times changed. I've changed. Now I feel like my life has changed. I lie awake to this long night. To separate me from my mind until the morning light just shines. Your words sound right. Cast these images to find. (I can't sleep another night)

Our signal is breaking up.
I'd like to focus my attention on something bigger than my thoughts.
Watch where you point those words.
Same saga.
Our hero never wins.
(Hardly a hero at all)
My eyes won't focus.
I'm standing crooked at the wrong place and wrong time.
Air sweeps through my ears like a vacuum.
Pulling life from view.
Draining me from you.
Welcome to our vacuum.

(Listen) to me, my best friend. Permission granted friend, but stay close to my heart and we'll get through this sad part. (Wander) with me, my lost friend and find something that makes sense. We catch drift far from home. Return to things we don't know. (This ship will burn) Breaking waves and bitter lives. (Full steam ahead) Turning tides and hanging minds. (Stop shoveling coal) Churn our sea, unpredictably. (The boiler room is full) (Recover) with me, my hurt friend. The wounds you wear aren't forever. The air will cool where you bleed. Your tears bear salt from our sea. (This ship will not overturn. These waves will not cool this burn. This sea will not swallow me. This past will not defeat me.) This distance is so absurding. Dropped anchor just to keep on moving. Found times bound ground in course from dead reckoning. The true course at what speed? Past times find ways to drown. Deciding distance for the present roaming. Off course source bound for worse in dead reckoning. We'll find true speed in traveling on. (Assumed command. Complied and warned those who don't know what it might have done.) (Hold on) to me, my last friend. My sails are free from all wind. Step down from my seat. My drowning mind sinks slowly.

Everything was so dead still. The air just froze and broke. Those few words that you said to you. They had no place to go, but to our minds, to our hearts and the torture wasn't marked. Now I've found that you hated our lives. I just think it through sometimes and get nowhere, but lost. I can't help but miss those things that we found through our talks. Now we don't laugh and we don't sing and I can't understand a thing. And the thirds and the fifths are all gone. (And it's so hard to see you now) Don't be my unsung zero. (And it's so wrong to hate you now) Don't be my unsung zero. (I can only scream half as loud) Don't be my unsung zero. I don't want to chase the past. It feels like finding ghosts. You seem to have your mind set up. It's creeping from our home. We don't talk and we don't call in this manufactured war where I can't even aim with my eyes. Now that we've closed that door. Hugged and stepped away. Thank you from my heart. With one last thing to say. I miss our life.

This is the last time that I feel lonely and sorry for myself.
It's getting worse without your help.
This is the last time that I feel tired.
I've tried to sleep at night and days walk by without much light.
Let me give back just a little.
Let me give back just a little this time.
Let me get back to the middle.
Let me get back to the middle this time.
This is the last time that I feel broken.
I've tried to fix this mess.
For years and years I fight my stress.
This is the last time that I feel helpless.
I've forced out every word and it still feels like I won't be heard.
Won't you help me?

You see your kids born
and they see us die.
This cycle, it isn't perfect
Sometimes you see them and die.
This cycle never stops.
It is a lesson
a memory
How much can you remember?
The more you remember
the more it hurts
We spen half of our lives living with each other
and the other half is to remember or cope with a loss
I can't do this myself
We are forced to see this
Untie me and let me close my eyes.
When they're gone
where do I stand?
To deal with both life and loss would push me to the edge
Brothers and sisters
come together to console each other
their Father or Mother.
When it's time
let's all fall hand in hand peacefully.
Closeness and each other
A lesson to remember

Bend the corners of this dark room that we have built around our lives.
Run around in circles, thinking that we're getting further,
but it hurts to look now.
It's getting hard to sleep.
It's getting hard to breathe.
It's getting hard to figure out just where my senses meet.
So I've crawled up on the couch on this one day off
to figure out which one of us is done.
Take the silence that we keep here to break the tension that surrounds us
and look down towards the ground
to see the swirling dirt make signs like clouds.
It's getting hard to think.
It's getting hard to leave.
It's getting hard to understand just who is going to give.
So I went up to escape from our homeless state
to leave the rest and think about just us.
These day and nightmares fill my thoughts with despair,
but that's not what I think about.
I'm coming home now and it hurts to look down,
but that's not what I think about.

We bury ourselves alive in a cold, steel van.
This pain isn't getting better.
The cities, they haven't changed.
I'm not the same.
Because of one and each other, we stay together.
This silence is getting scary.
The people, they haven't changed, I've changed.
Deconstruct this love, replace this time.
Rebuild or nail yourself to the ground.
The blinder I am, the better I think that I am.
The songs that are playing are still too loud.
Tiring myself from these walls that I tore to the ground, drown.
We destroy ourselves at night and we fall apart.
Just like every magazine stand, we try to find the right words.
Just a telephone call, it makes things better.
So I stare out the window and I wish that I was alive.

I came to see you and talk about how things have been.
I can't keep fighting and think about what we have left.
Wrap me up. Spit me out.
I've had these fights for years so now.
Slow me down. Call me out.
I've had these doubts, but no one knows just how.
Where do you think that I stand now?
Where do you think you will let me fall?
I can see it. A picture of one cold, dark cloud.
A mist around you to choke the painful worlds out of your crooked mouth.
Think it out. Calm me down.
I come home so dull and feel unknown.
Take a break? Foreign ground.
It never feels quite right, the way that we put each other down.
I've been being too vague now.
I've been writing the same old friends.
These predictions will mean so little
in light of all of the things that we can't mend.
I will be there to resuscitate you.

This is not my fault.
I tell myself that so I don't go.
It's not like you didn't know.
I just put myself down from so far away.
I'm fading out.
My time is counting down.
There's nothing for me here.
There's nothing in this cold heart.
There's something to die for and it's tearing me apart.
There's a scream in the distance.
There's a deafening silence.
You can't just know what I'm feeling.
I have to take you there and I can't stop myself.
I don't want to see.
I don't want to hear.
There's nothing for me here.
There's nothing in this cold heart.
There's something to die for and it's tearing us apart.
There's a long-winded answer.
There's a long, endless battle.
You can't just know what I'm feeling.
I have to take you there and I can't stop myself.
If I don't quit this now, we'll all be lost or dead,
but that takes too long when your best guess is wrong.
You want to see this through?
I don't want anything,
but a bit of comfort to make these times worth something.
I don't want know. I don't want anything

Where's your brother? Where's your sister? Do you remember when they used to let me in? I just wanted to see you again. What happened when the door closed? We're led to believe that it would never lock. I never set my feet again against our wall and now I'm sick. I'm sick of hurting you. I'm ten feet tall, then to nothing. My hands still bleed from the fall. There I stand again at your door. Can I just sleep on the floor? We can just talk through this long night. I never set my feet again against our wall and now I'm sick. I'm sick of hurting you. Here I stand again knocking at your door while you check your hands. We may be right. Here I stand again waiting by your door. Let me take your hands. I'll make you right.

This isn't the first time I've talked about you.
This won't be the last time I talk about you.
This isn't the first time I've thought about you.
This won't be the last time I think about you.
I dare you to fall for me.
All of the warnings in the world won't make you leave me now.
You will stay until we're both broken down and then you'll crawl away
while I stay laying on the ground.
Imagine all these things.
Will you trust me?
Our sleepless nights.
Your back to me.
My sleepless nights and all of these screams.
The outline of your hand still remains on my hand.
The outline of your hand still remains on my hand.
This isn't the first time we've found each other.
This won't be the last time we find each other.
This isn't the first time I've held you.
This won't be the last time I hold you.
The envy has finally settled.
I can't stand to watch any longer, staring at the ceiling.
Retracing our old tracks and the path we never took.
No more talking about where I went wrong.

So you laugh and try to change your way.
I hope that you don't have to lie again.
If I walk out right now, will it make you see the things that you can't stop?
Head feels heavy.
Mind can't find it.
I try to leave all.
Feet aren't moving.
Eyes keep blinking.
I'll be the one to laugh it off.
It kills, but you know you have to say it.
You leave this going for so long, unchanged.
If I walk out right now, will it make you see the things that you can't stop?

I'm crawling down the pavement.
Everything streams by.
Everyone screams by.
On the trip back home, I wasn't sure if I was going to make it.
We crush what's coming.
We can't recover.
We leave what's empty and move down the line.
Everything has made me bitter.
I coughed up a smile tonight.
I brought home a fake badge to wear around the house
and show my loved ones how much I try.
I've killed what's missing.
The pavement is peeling.
We've lost what's broken and saved each other.

its raining in my sleep. wont you cover me with sheets made of arms. hands behind my back. no point to even try. my sad song. my bad anthem. my sad song. easier to hide on the outside. almost impossible to hide on the inside. alone for a day. alone for a week. will i be lonely forever? and they ask is there anything better? id have to say no. pick me off of the ground. put me back on my feet. punch out for a block. awoke in the awake.

i still love you. is that too much for you to take? an old friend told me that you have to fight for what you want. i could see the look in his eyes that night. the hidden message behind them. (i live and breathe the pain) i picked the dull way down. (i pretend) why dont you understand? (i have my second wind now) why wont you hold my hand? (i miss you) i gave you my life. (even with the lights on) thats the best information since i hurt you last. (i remember you, i hope you do to) give me one more chance. its been a long time maybe. i was thinking. you keep clapping while i sit by the tree. thank you for the warning.

this will be the only time i call you. its the only chance i give myself. ive meant to talk for the last four years. please pick up. im restless. ive been trying to forgive you. your face returns into my head. youve been trying to be friendly. i forget the words i send. dont forget a word ive said. took the phone into the backyard. its time to let this one unwind. it could have been better to have never. it could have been the millionth time. ran into you. sweating and shaking. the eye contact hurts. i couldnt make it. i leave tomorrow. i leave tomorrow. reach for my hand. ill be back. (dont forget me)

sitting on a cold wall i can feel the wind penetrate this thin blue coat. just enough to give me comfort that i so very need just enough to keep my mind warm. i breathe. i want to scream. i want to bleed these last few weeks i wish that i was home. the comfort of that place just seems so far from here. i wish that i had you. we could be just anywhere and id still have you near. id still have you here. sitting on a hard floor i can smell the smoke coming from your thin black lungs. reminds me why i hate this city and the people in between. reminds me why i slept in the back seat.

just in time for me to put on a smile. ill laugh along with you. we can put on our own show too. they all stare at the queen not the goof. ill jump at the chance to chance my time with you. fell right on my face. caught staring into the sun. my eyes got burnt with my pride. my heart.

he said just to let him go. no ropes attached. this is how he wants it. this is how we want it? im holding back my tears. my throat is dirt. the four of us. time to discuss. what will we do in thirty years. is it this weather? have the clouds ran down inside your head? soaked in cynicism. you dry me up. the time is always green. the eyes all squint. it comes out red and blistered. screaming for completion. when time stares back. let the sun kill you. when time stares back. let your son live you. take care of me.