Things that Last

More valid than the arguments that you don’t make anymore
More living than the hearts that stopped beating long ago
More honest than a cheating husband coming home late through the back door
More understanding than the ones who claim they know
What it’s like to live inside of these regrets
We hope the only things that last are the things that we forget

More hopeful than you are when you’re disappointed
More caring than a teacher teaching for the test
More humble than someone who’s double-jointed
At a party where you’re the uninvited guest
And off in your own corner, their jokes are just in jest
You hope the only things that last are the things that you forget

More open than a safe that hides away, locked and secure
More giving than those who avoid the bad part of town
More loving than the parents who’ve taught you how to be ignored
More dependable than anyone who’s ever let you down
If an enemy is only a friend you haven’t learned to love yet
It seems the only things that last are the things that we forget
No matter which one stayed or which one left or if you wished we’d never met
Now the only things that truly last are the things that we so easily forget

I want to remember
I want to remember you in colors brighter than sunlight
I want to let go of any hate and just say it’s alright
I want to hold nothing back and tell you that I love you to death
‘Cause the only things that last are the things that we forget
The only things that last are the things that we forget

Skeletons

Sometimes I stand alone and think, wonder to the night about a not so distant past
Who I can be and who I am, am I in the way of the light or am I the shadow cast
by these
Misrepresentations and misunderstandings
Less than the sum of my parts so broken
Miscommunication and missed expectations
What idle thoughts can lead to shattered hearts when they go unspoken


And leaves turn to falling like I did for you
And winters come swiftly on the land
But is that all that I am?

When your light like the sun
Came and warmed my frozen life
I thought for sure you were the one
But come and gone, now out of sight
With this deep guilt, this escalation
That’s changed me into a monster of my own creation
Just a glimpse from your eyes
Or a word from your lips
Or a song from your heart
And all I am
Is devastation

Sometimes I walk down lonely roads with passing cars where no one knows my name
So I think about who we are now and how much that has (or maybe hasn’t) changed
like the
Resolutions and dreams for tomorrow
Hope is fleeting in such as these captive musings
What solution for your streams of sorrow
The causation in my hands, too sickly to meet demands of the excuses I am using

But spring rises in uncertain times like these
Or so I have been told
Growing weary of the cold

Is this a light like the sun
Come to warm my frozen life
I thought for sure that I was done
How far I’d run from what was right
With this confusion, agitation
That’s found me here at a fork in the road of inspiration
Just a glimpse of some peace
Or a word of some hope
Or a melody of love
And do I find
This emancipation
Without exaggeration
When humiliation turns to humility
And from guilt I am then set free
And my blinded eyes begin to see
The sun
And it’s okay that you were not

The one

Tell me who, if not you, will it be?
Tell me why this isn’t right when all that we can see is wrong
And all along we’re fading out like fairy-tales long forgotten
With all we've bought in life just rusting out
And there's no trusting now
This material life

“...because in these moments when we remember, we are but fragments of ourselves”

in these simple quiet moments, when i am utterly and most assuredly alone
that is when her eyes appear most vividly behind my eyelids
that is when i know just the right words to say
that is when every moment is now but i am wise enough to know its weight
and i hold this blinding moment in my shaking hand
and i look deep upon its every surface and begin to peel back the layers
and i wait for the sound of its heartbeat
and i listen intently for it
and i know that somewhere inside it is the perfect instant
the feeling of which comes back to me
in the empty, inescapable moments of solemn, secret sorrow
when the entire world is turning but I
I am standing still
and with every slow-motion symphony of movement and pause
there is a new and painful twist to the maze
there is a dark and hollow place sanded to smoothness around
there is a sense of the unattainable so strong that it overtakes me
my better judgment lost to a cause unknown
and every bit of me was sure I could do something about it
but now I know no knowledge of pertinent use
just memories and masks
just misspellings and malcontents
just misery and melodrama
just me and my thoughts to gather
as a shepherd sheers his sheep
till they are cold and irrelevant
so am I in these two worlds
one where I am needed, cold and distant to labor
and one where I was king but no more
throne-less and alone with this bouncing guilt
in the empty, inescapable moments of solemn, secret sorrow
when the entire world is turning but I
I am standing still
because in these moments when we remember
we are but fragments of ourselves

...

this is the story of a boy
who one day woke up to find he had grown wings
this is the story of a boy
who one day woke up to find he had become king
this is the story of a boy
who one day woke up and had everything he ever wanted or ever dreamed
this is the story of a boy
who never grew up or really did anything