I'm not too good at guitar.

Words:
If I wrote the ransom, could you show me how?
We could catch a plane and move out of the south.
We could be giants, we could be strong.
You know what it feels like? I think we get along.
And you told me something I thought you'd never say.
But I stopped listening right after you said hey.
I focused on your smile, saw the lines between your teeth.
It might be meek and mild, but oh the secrets underneath.

"Won't you come with me?" It's all that I want.
But you'll always leave me, I knew it from the start.

I am a vampire, with bags under my eyes.
Asleep in the morning, up late at night.
Been crawling through buildings searching for blood.
And coming up empty, except food for thought.
The thought of being with you, do you wanna hang?
We could commiserate, and make a good time.
Take me to the mountains, take me to the beach.
Take me to all your friends, let's make a memory with each.
Let's go out drinking, should we take your car?
It's almost time to leave me, it can't be very far. 

Sleeplessness

Words:

He lay on the ground, crushed by stress and pain.
His weary eyes forced shut in vain, sightless and silent the stranger he remains.
Cross his heart and hope of dying.
Cursed to carry this weight.
His shoulders, they're aching, his spine is contorted.
Shallowly and sorrowful, the stranger he remains.
Oh how the world conspires against him, and how he fights back in vain.
For his muscles were too small to carry the weight.
The size of the Earth, it crushed him.
He thought of his family, and what they would say.
Thought of his future in light of his burdens.
From his perspective, no light remains.
Listless and vacant, his eyes open into the darkness.
His ears search for a song yet unsung.
Breathing slowly, he moves to the window, contemplates the leaves and the trees.
He realized how fake life's become.
And yet, still and stubborn, the stranger remains.
Why me?
Why me?
Why me, he asks.
Doing all he can to keep his back straight, the stranger lifts himself to his knees.
The gravity of here & now pushes against him.
And his joints ache for relief, but he'd rather break than be known for apathy.
Rather be caught dead than found deceased.
Time and space became nothing
He pushes life to its knees
And he took his rightful place
On his own two feet.

And he said
"If this is lfe then I can take it.
If this is me, then this is me.
My muscles rip and my bones are breaking, but a stranger I'll no longer be.
May the know the name of Atlas, may they carve it into stone.
As I bear the Worlds on my shoulders, they are mine and mine alone."

Lifecrusher

I open my eyes as the sun begins its peak.
It's midday, half a day gone, or as the glass half full sort of person would say
It's a new day, as with each and every dawn
Every noon past is time spent still living.
Breathing shallowly through rotting lungs I move into my living room,
Adorned with freshly matted hair and eyes that look like they don't sleep too much
Because honestly, they don't.

And I join most modern Americans, struggling to keep rent on the table.
Because a place to live is more fleeting than a plate of food nowadays
We're all just processed and paced anyway, into our dedicated houses
Based on our monthly income.
But how come there are so many still left cold on the street corners
While I struggle to maintain the highest low class this city can offer?
One job isn't enough, two jobs barely cut it, money disappears quicker than debt
And this amount of stress is surely no way to live.
And I've been hearing noises, not the kind like I'm crazy, just the kind where I'm terrified of the future and the monsters it can bring.
But there's no sense living in fear, is there?
Because if I just close my eyes, it'll go away right?
Wrong.
It just gets darker and louder, growing to a pitch marked unbearable by even the most experimental musicians. 
It's that sound I try to capture
So I can confront my fears
Face forward
Shoulders straight
Head to the sky and hands to string
I will sing.

It's gonna be alright.
It's gonna be just fine.

Dedicated Houses

Song for Lili

Lonesome

In memory of Ian Jordan.

LYRICS:

Well it's too often that i've been visiting funeral homes, draped in black
holding my head up manually because this gravity brings it down, down
and I see all these people in tears embracing one another like lifelong lovers
I am still in denial till I see the hard truth. 
All my friends all leaving me, some only temporary
but it's when it's permanent that then it scares me
what a wonder life is, that I can be here one moment and gone the next
a car crash, an overdose
and theses kids they live life too hard and too fast and all I can think about is how I have failed them.

I stand in line, long lines to the casket
I drop a note with comforting words in a basket
I catch up with old friends who wouldn't contact me otherwise
try to give a smile while air around me contracts
crushing my lungs with it's power,
this weight of death is too heavy to bear alone
and so we gather in such long lines
to try and console the families
oh, the families
as I reach them and give them a warm embrace

brothers, who I barely know hold me tight,
they cry into my shoulder and all I can say is it's gonna be alright
but is it gonna be alright? I don't think so
because someone we loved is gone and they always take a piece of you with them
all the time you spent together suddenly rushes to your mind
you think of the last time they saw you
did you know that he loved you, the brother cries?
And that's when my stone hard exterior breaks
and the tears, they stream down out of my face
and oh
how heavy the weight of death.

And as I make my way to their mothers
always the mothers
her warm embrace still showing in comforting grace and she cries and so do I
and we speak of times passed, of memories, now golden
of playing together in the afternoon son
her son, now gone

I shake hands with people I barely know
only know they are related somehow
we are all related
we all share this pain in the same way
we all feel lost without you.

And finally, I make my way past flowers and portraits
to where they have laid your body
adorned with the finest suit you own.
And I see you lying there and all of me breaks
I rush out the side door to tear myself away
I am undone

and now I know I must accept it.
These eyes have you burned into them.
The last place that I will ever see you
and we can't even talk.
Not like in the old days
when we'd question authority
or cut up about seniorities trying to rule this land
no, never again.

I exit, this funeral home, this prison of sorrow
and am held in the embrace of my loved ones
all my close friends, who now live far away

and later, we take the cars to gravesite.
We throw our flowers, and watch the men lower you down
then soberly, slowly we all leave
we all leave.


speakernc