love letters

• There's nothing that I wouldn't steal for you / No roof or bridge I wouldn't climb to feel like I'm alive / I went to your sob story and all I got was a fistfight / I might not tell you the whole truth but all you do is lie, lie, lie, lie
• The slowing of your breathing, the slurring of your speech / The burn marks on my legs, the stepping stones down to the beach / The way you're looking at me, baby, you're so fucking out of reach / But the stars don't look the same since your body found peace
• If every shooting star we wish on's just a chemical burnout / We can tell each other's futures in the burn holes on my couch / And if the stars don't look the same when my luck finally runs out / Dump my body in the sunset on the hill beside my house
• Between the road head, the road rage, the DUIs / You've got many roads to follow down the pupils of your eyes / And if the stars just look the same after hours on my bike / I guess I fucked it up again but all I can do is try, try, try, try

fire escape

• It won't feel good till I hear your voice / On the north side of town
• Why I missed your wedding day, and what was I running from / Closeness or distance or trucks in Nebraska / And I just blackout, what I do to survive / Life's got two yellow lines, and I fell asleep driving
• Your heart screams the words, your mouth finds their shape: / "I'm not gonna die here" / The glass cuts your feet as you walk away / The picture gets clearer
• It's a house up in flames, and you built your own cage / Just so no one could hurt you / If there's nothing to lose, there's nothing to gain / That's just something you learn through

milk crates

• Like a dog tugging on a rope / I don't even know where I'd go if they let go / In my selfish narrow mindedness / They put up a chain-link fence / Now there's nothing I can do but bark my head off
• But we're not fucking playing / I got these teeth for a reason / I know that it's life or death, I can't forget it / I lie down and you kiss my forehead / I tell you I'm just fucking exhausted from work / I don't wanna get drunk, I don't wanna go out / It feels like survival just isn't enough, is it?
• And there are things in your life that you were made to run away from / But it's not your grief, or your pain, or any other kind of love / I let go of my hold on a happy ending, when you're backed into a corner, there's no horizon
• I found your mouth under the blankets this might be the last night I can taste country duets and inhalants
• No job, no place to get away from / I've been to a world worth living in / No rent, no lies to memorize / No fucked up world to drown out

river song

• Leave more pain behind with each town we pass / The road sodas are on me if you can drive real fast
• Drive me down to the river on the golden hour
• There's someone I don't wanna be living in my mind / But everybody's got something they wanna leave behind
• I'll be the dead dog laying out in the hot summer heat
• I leave my shirt on the shore, trade in all my regrets / I got a couple of years to forget
• Saw all the friends I lost standing up on the bridge / We'll waste the whole day in the sun and just smoke and bitch / Kiss your crooked teeth, the trestle of your grin / A monument to a world worth living in
• Let the red wine go ahead and stain my shirt / Let this river wash away all my god damned hurt / Let the sun sink low and the day roll past / And just think about how I never get the moment back
• I hope you know you don't owe nobody nothing / I hope you know just how much I believe in you / How your friends light up when you walk in the room / And the joy and the love to see you live your truth

empties

• Bury my feet in the dirt, by the pine in the garden with my cat / He got too brave in the breath of the freeway / Bury my feet in your blankets, / Christmas lights in your bedroom, with your cat / And I get brave and I tell you how I'm feeling
• Bury my face in your hair, you smell like parliaments and whispered fears / Like "what if you move back to New York and I never see you again?" / We wear each other's clothes a silent promise on the back porch / We pack another bowl and skate down to the corner store
• With grief in my lungs I will choke on your silence / Your breath on my lips and the patterns that bind us
• And our eyes glaze over eagerly / In smoked out fantasies of chosen family / A house in the woods, a litter of kittens / We could raise our children with a river to swim in
• You brush my hair behind my ear / Can't stay in this town long but for tonight you're here / I never throw out your empties you haunt me night after night / I see reflections of ghosts, like your eyes in the porch light

clawfoot

• Flower petals on my knees / A mosaic drenched in pink / And I wouldn't love you without your anger / But now you won't tell me what's wrong
• It's been a while since I felt safe outside my bedroom / I know I can't make up my mind / But I'm a sunflower, all dried up and dead and burnt out / Overwhelmed by what I needed
• Bathroom tiles carved into my knees / It breaks my heart to think, "is this conversation worth having?" / I know you're sick and tired of feeling stagnant / But your friends don't push you to grow / I know we could all use some validation
• I tried to loosen knots by pulling on them harder: / I didn't give myself no room to breathe
• And you can fantasize in time things will work themselves out / Self medicate by running out of town / In neurotic desperation I seek out bodies of water / And learn to cry in total silence

soup for my family

• There's crowds of hungry people everywhere / But that's alright, I brought enough to share!
• Please officer, you gotta believe me, it's soup for my family! / No I ain't no crook, I ain't no vandal / Just pourin' one out from a can of Campbells
• No, I ain't no part of no organization / It's just a perfect summer night for some celebration / You brought the ribs, I brought a can of clam chowder / Let's roast these piggies and sing together!
• Now anytime that I'm feeling lonely / I just head into the street with some minestrone / If this thankless job has made your heart grow cold / I got some chicken soup for your fascist soul

tether

• We took all the flags down and now / You can watch the kids hit the tetherball 'round / We took all the flags down and now / Gonna find me a hill and just lay on down
• I seen the crows down in the street / I ain't gonna worry about what I eat / I seen the crows in the street / I'm gonna head on down, see who I meet
• I seen a hole down in the fence / I'm gonna run until my head makes sense
• I feel the gun between my teeth / I'm gonna die standing on my feet / I taste the gun between my teeth / Either him or me is gonna set me free

sunbleached

• Your head a mess of guilt and blood-soaked bedsheets / You left in the dark of morning with your head down / You learned the curves of the road like the shape of his subversive body / Winter morning on your windshield, running on empty
• Between whiplash from the weather and your erratic tone / I grit my teeth, you talk down to me over the phone / It's not the kind of love that feels good, but it's one you can't escape from / Makes my heart skip beats like car wheels on a gravel road
• I'm thrashing as glittering waves of orange poppies crest over my head / Vultures circle over highway one / I come down washed up under cliffs bleached by the sun, I breathe in, I breathe out / My body falls apart again

feather river canon blues

• Sometimes I can't tell if you're coming or going / Till the fluorescent lights find the nape of your neck
• And a bed, and the brain that won't let you alone / Watch your chest rise and fall, tiny sobs by the highway / Where the days stretch out empty and the nights get so cold
• Last summer I tried just to black out the pain / While the sunlight pulled chemical knives through my brain
• Held the hand of a stranger just to give it away
• Pull my knees to my chest, push my face to the floor / Throw the weight of your body at my bedroom doorm / I climb out of the window and stumble into the street / And just bury myself in the people I meet
• Open mouths interlaced, who I am starts to blur / Fall asleep with our mutual destructions assured / A fist full of shrooms, drive my car up the coast / Don't know how long I've been gone but baby I'm coming home