Are We the Antithesis? (lyrics)

i remember riding in your car
you’d have my mind changed all the way around before we got there
i remember talkin’ to you on the phone
when you were too drunk to care
i remember sayin you were my best friend
thinkin’ you were like the brother i never had

forgiveness means letting go
but it doesn’t mean i don’t know
what you’d do to me again if you had your way

i remember when i saw her open up a little
let me know ‘bout the way you treated my only kin
you tell me still that you wanna marry her someday
but i swore long ago i’d never let you touch her again
i remember sayin you were my best friend
thinkin’ you were like the brother i never had

forgiveness means letting go
but it doesn’t mean i don’t know
what you’d do to me again if you had your way
forgiveness means breaking walls
but it doesn’t mean that i fall
for the same old tricks that i did just yesterday

i remember more than anything the guilt and the pain
and i remember you telling me how much you had changed
i remember how i used to be so terrified of you
but now just watch me shake your hand and walk away

forgiveness means letting go
but it doesn’t mean i don’t know
what you’d do to me again if you had your way
forgiveness means breaking walls
but it doesn’t mean that i fall
for the same old tricks that i did just yesterday

Syren and the Serpent's Song

A pretty smile shows off the faintest of fangs
As I catch you making eyes at some other stupid guys
In sequence I see their expectations rise
Onto the next kill while the thrill from the last one still hangs

On the tips of your teeth or on the ledge of your lip
On the crust of your lust they feel the flavor they felled
Your shell’s hot as hell, but you need serious help
‘Cause your cliff’s about to crumble and you’re losing your grip

Wish I could say I look back fondly on our staring contest
We told each other we were both so great
But really I was just another one you’d teach how to hate
A narrow escape, with these pathetic poetics I now heavy-heartedly confess

Thought I could trust you, thought I knew how to deal
But the evidence is faulty and I think you might be crazy
I was emotionally disturbed and maybe gotta a little lazy
But now I see your eyes are liars and your words aren’t real

Forgive me if a bit of bitterness shows through
A product of my thinly veiled cynicism
I think maybe in being cut by your perfect prism
I didn’t see the way this life was beginning to shatter you too

For all those lives you take so you don’t feel dead
I’m just another brittle boy who was caught unaware
But I guess we’re both to blame, standing alone somewhere out there
And some things have gone on for far too long unsaid

A pretty smile conceals the traces of tracks that tears take
As I catch you looking away in a way that I’d miss with a blink
Do the lies of labels make us who we are, expectations, rethink
Maybe we play our parts and break these hearts for fear’s sake

Home? What's that? Indeed.

There's a lightness to the land
I'm not at home on my own two feet
While waves and empty hands
Both shake within the weight beneath

My mind is a closed door
With so much open space inside for
A universe of thoughts waiting to collide inside
Your voice, in a familiar key
Melodiously beckons me
To the beat of this slowly widening tide

There's a heartbeat to these rocks
And all the proof I need is hidden there
At the edge where the continent stops
Where the wind winds wistfully her haloed hair

My mind is a collapsing maze
And I've been known to get lost in there for days
Looking for a way to find myself without losing who I am
My doubts resigning
With your eyes and mine aligning
Remind me that I don't have to go back to who I've been

You're teaching me how to be
A more connected kind of me
This distance is the sea
But the water is beckoning
You're reaching out, I see
Our arms like a bridge there in between
Hold tight to this fragility
And wait until the reckoning
(Oh dear, how you're wreckin' me)

My mind is a broken centrifuge
And a summertime attempt at luge
'Cause I'll spin round and round and stay right there in the dust too
When all my familiar lies
Choke me tight like courtroom neckties
You walk in so informal as if its normal to expect me to trust you

There's a lightness to the land
I'm not at home on my own two feet
As you reach out a welcoming hand
And speechlessness takes the place of warning

Old Habits

Watch me go
I'm already gone
I was never really here
But you should know
I was always wrong
And it's quickly becoming clear

That we are what we are
And if that's changing
Maybe I've made it for the worse
Have we already gone too far
To accept the estranging
This pattern is my curse

What do you do when it seems like speaking the truth in love isn't the same thing as speaking the truth in kindness?

What do you do when, in attempting to remove your mask, you notice a line of people waiting to replace it with their own?

What do you do when you're an alien or a shadow or a broken toy?

What do you do when the curtains open and you've forgotten all your lines?

What do you do when you know there's more but everyone else is settling?

What do you do when maybe you're wrong?

What do you do when sleep runs away at night and chases you down all day?

What do you do when comfort is nowhere to be found and home is too much an abstraction?

What do you do when it doesn't feel worth it to trust 'cause they'll probably end up hating you anyway?

What do you do when you catch a glimpse of the hurt in the world and it kills you?

What do you do...ever?

This is the Dark Side of Shallow Conversations

The house sat silent
For the first time in its long life
I'm sure it creaked when it was made

There were statues made of cobwebs
Painting every corner a shade of ages past
A legacy of leftover and half-forgotten promises

The utter emptiness of it
Even when filled to the brim
Was a wailing of its own

But now it no longer stood
Screaming its shutters off
But sat silent and serene

Perfect in quiet
Reflected in the sky of memories
And burning, slowly, to the ground

I watched from beneath the canopy
Of the valley trees
Looking up at the nostalgic flames

That Cat Probably Followed Us for About the Past Five Blocks

Are those wrecking balls
I hear your walls are closin' in
From across the way
Did someone say
They found a way to get back in
Now all the ears are itchin' for
Needles just for stitchin' your
Rippin' seams the way that they see fit
No matter how you fight or try to hide,
Seems they won't quite quit

And now everyday's a war winnin' nothin' back
You're not chased by your past, 'cause it doesn't even need to try
What can I say, this beat up horse is off the old beaten track
And no one can see that you were meant to fly
Locked in cages for ages made of ears and teeth and tiny pretty pieces of the sky

With a word writ in dirt as your jaded eyes bleed
Look up with your mask, never dare ask, "why me"

Oceans away from these open arms
Though your sitting closer than either one of us can believe
Hope is a wave that has caused you so much harm
But right now it seems to have brought you here to me

And I wish I could save you
But I'm not good like everyone else
When I can barely face you
It's only because I'm ashamed of myself

And then you smile and look so intently on
And your hands are your voice, and your eyes are your song
And for an instant I think I have met you for the first time
And I know everything will turn out fine

Hot Coffee, Cold Water, Eyes Look Down

A catching in your breath
You don't know what to say
A racing in your chest
As love wanders away

Up a flight of stairs
Like a ghost of something real
An exoskeleton
Forgetting how to feel

She says she doesn't know how
To breathe the same stale air
To put on the same uniform
And the mask she's s'posed to wear

You say she doesn't have to
But she acts like you're a lie
And you wonder if it's your fault
When she says she wants to die

Are you just another luster
That's been lost from its old ore
Or are you hidden somewhere deep inside
A now bereft and burnt-out core

Yeah, you don't know what to say
But you've been trying to figure out
What if anything she'd listen to
Of love without a doubt

But the world's beaten her black and blue
For the beautiful and vain
But you know there's so much more to her
So much more it drives you insane

Now you'd love to be her only one
But you know you're not what she needs
A savior who knows her every step
But loves her for more than her good deeds

Someone who loves her in her heavy heart
Someone who holds her deep inside
Someone who knows her and meets her in the dark
And comforts her when she cries

And no matter how much you want it
You still don't know what to say
To make her see the worth she has
As love wanders away

Yeah, no matter how much you say it
Right now all you can do is pray
And it kills you 'cause you know it's killin' her
As love wanders away

3 haikus

No longer waiting
To understand who you are
But rather trusting

This is a danger
But right now in this moment
No better cliff-edge

There was a sadness
As I sat discontented
But here is the smile