As a child, I reasoned as one
In awe of a world that seemed so new when young.
I was born without patience or grace
Through a mirror darkly, but then face to face.
Now I’m grown, but never alone
And there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make my love known.
Your love leaves fingerprints on my heart
That I carry with me each time we are apart.

And no one’s just benevolence incarnate
No one’s the source of all the world’s hate No one’s balm for all my problems
And no one’s the sole origin of them. And in the face everything I know always have a home in you
And you’re the face behind any good thing I may do.

And I am only the things that I do
And truly I’m trying to do what you’d want me to.
I am flawed, and God only knows
What’s next to come, but you’re next to me as it does
So I can’t be too busy growing
To see what you’ve traded just to keep me going.
As a child, I reasoned as one
Your love will be in everything beautiful past when we’re done.

Face to Face

I don’t have the words to say all that I mean
But I’ll say I love you and the love that could have been.
‘Cause of things that you’d say, your warmth so sincere
I breathed moments of fantasy that exhaled to years.
I tried living your life, I made space for you and changed
I grieved for time lost when you were ever a stranger
And for being two separates beings—
I loved too long, too much
Wanting closer than close, too close to be touched.

But it never bloomed.
It was too soon then late.
I won’t try to persuade you
You’ll choose your fate.
And I’ll never see you, as long as I live
To bring you my love, that’s all I can give.

Beauty is something that’s brutal and brief 
Your body’s a cube that dissolves in my coffee.
The chemistry in me with years will have lighter weight
But traces of what’s deeper inside will always stay
I won’t interrupt you as you go ‘round—I’ll go
I’m not really so fragile, so you won’t have to know.

It’s only dead ends
Chaos I can’t share
You wouldn’t need persuading
If it could go anywhere.
I won’t try to see you, as long as I live
To show you my love, it’s all I can give.

All I Can Give

Living a nightmare weighs you down with dreams
Something is right there but something keeps it away it seems
And somehow that amounts to everything.

Living with losing makes winning sound like more
Life’s all around but the life within you makes you shut the door
And somehow that amounts to everything.

I turn a film on but can’t watch, I’m hardly there
I turn the page in a book but words go in and out like air
And somehow that amounts to everything.

If I could start it again, then I guess
I would do everything, with no exceptions, neck deep in the mess
And somehow that amounts to everything.

But everyday the hydrogen is burning
The cup of earth that circles it is turning
And all that’s a tear in an ocean.

Everyday has prizes for earning
New math to solve and new words for learning
And everything’s a tear in an ocean.

A thought’s a paper boat on a river
In everyone, stories so sad the world would shiver
And all that’s a tear in an ocean.

Everyday the strangest things occur
For no real reason so it’s all a blur
But because of the one’s I love I’ll live through it all if it kills me.

Everyday we’re Roosevelt and Harding
We make the same new rules for disregarding
And everything’s a tear in an ocean.

Everyday we go to work to save
For a plot of land where they can put our grave
And everything’s a tear in an ocean.

Everyone seems to know where they’re going
But you can only see what they’re showing
And everything’s a tear in an ocean.

Face to Face

TJ

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