i

You were simpler, you were lighter when we thought like little kids.

Like a weightless, hateless animal,

beautifully oblivious before you were hid inside a stranger you grew into

as you learned to disconnect.

Now he hangs your mirrors separately, so one can’t show you what the other reflects.

When he heard I was on his tail, he emptied your account

and hid a part of you that’s so invaluable,

(the part of you unsellable at any amount).

He left the tallest peak of your paradise

buried in the bottom of a canyon in hell,

but I swear, I’ll find your light in the middle,

where there’s so little- late at night, down in the pit of the well.

Then when heaven has a line around the corner,

we shouldn’t have to wait around and hope to get in

if we can carpenter a home in our heart right now

and carve a palace from within.

We won’t need to take a ton of pictures,

It won’t be easy to believe the day we wake inside a secret place that everyone can see.

ii

Can you hear me when I’m trapped behind the mirror?

A doppelgänger roaring from my silent kind of furor?

If you’re quiet, you can hear the monster breathing…

Do you hear that gentle tapping?

My ugly creature’s freezing.

And now’s he howling, but I’m muted by the horror.

How he’s everywhere and waiting,

now he’s just around the corner.

Paranoia backward whispering on my shoulder,

like a wasp is getting nervous, so if I shiver… man, it’s over.

iii

In the hotel, I can’t remember how the past felt.

I rent a blank room to stop living in my past self.

Fuck now, I’m outta here tomorrow.

Fuck now, I’m outta here tomorrow,

and when I check out, it won’t matter how my name’s spelled,

‘cause when you pass through, you only keep what you can’t sell.

In the hotel, I can’t remember how the past felt.

But in a strange bed, I keep sleeping with my past self.

Fuck now, I’m outta here tomorrow.

Fuck now, I’m outta here tomorrow,

and when I check out, it won’t matter how my name’s spelled,

‘cause when you pass through, you only keep what you can’t sell.

iv

Maybe when I’m older, I’ll be clearer,

more attuned and understanding.

Well, I’m ready.

I wrote a list of my demands and then I burned an older version.

So to start with, I’ll start over.

I’ll cut my hair and cut the power.

So who am I without weapons?

Without defense to arm my guards against intruders?

Well this is my house, so fuck your doubts and your cute battalion,

‘cause I’m steady,

and when my double scales the wall,

I’ll know exactly where he’s landing and I’ll surprise him.

Then when he’s captured, with his hands bound,

I beg for answers to all my questions, like,

“What happened?

Why’d you let me let you in when I was younger?

And why’d I need to?”

v

From a stage in your heart, I can tell that you’re far from yourself

when you barter your lust for your health.

And when you claim it’s all a play, and you just don’t care,

I only stare…

I’m a director watching you rehearse.

You say,

“Lend me your eyes to evolve from that actor I fight in the dark,

where I’m two twins I can’t tell apart!”

But you remember which is which when the wrong man wins.

You will hate who you are ’til you overthrow who you’ve been.

How’d you expect your soul to send a whole patrol

if you were too far gone for me to know where to find you?

I’ve wandered out alone into your cold unknown to try to bring you home.

So you forgot your way?

Well I’m trying to remind you.

vi

When some unfamiliar faces came to shop in our old house,

I didn’t bother trying to stop them until they emptied it out.

I was standing by the front door, stuffing cash in a jar, taking payment for our failures…

…I only wanted to alarm you.

So when they asked me for directions, I sold them our map.

I sold our shovels and our flashlights,

they took our duffel bag with a ton of room, but a broken strap.

The hungry patrons hit the graveyard, I lit a joint in the house,

where there was nothing but our mattress

and the same soft shelter of sheets,

where nobody found us…

I let them strip your mausoleum so nothing was left,

but they forgot to close the casket…

They sent you shivering to my doorstep.

Gently clawing at my window when I was less than awake,

I slid it up for you to slither through.

I heard you howling,

"Just take me!

Just take me to the rusty city we perfected,

that holy summer we first found!”

The place you’re stubbornly protecting

is the only pretty thing that we own now,

and we can stay here to wither in your garden of eden,

but your fantasy’s a prison

and you’re serving a sentence you can’t stop repeating.

Can you see the secret exit? The false wall in obsession?

You’ll only fit through the doorway when you relinquish your possessions.



So leave everything you’ve stolen that you can’t give back,

and don’t replace what you’ve been missing until you know what you’re lacking.

Leave everything you’ve borrowed and kept for yourself.

You can’t unbreak our broken leases holding on to broken pieces,

so return them!

No guilt, no sorry speeches.

vii

Right when the blizzard ends, they throw a fucking huge parade-

A great excuse for celebration of the mess they’ve made.

But then when the streets get flooded, we know what proximity’s worth,

‘cause we’re already here, in the same place when our phones don’t work.

So then we lie down in our field and just do nothing at all,

and I’m getting ready for when everything is wonderful

for just a couple pairs of broken bones with broken feathers in blood,

in a meadow, uncut and understood.

We can be an island apart from a ceaseless war on our heart,

Harbored in a fortress insurmountable,

Taller than affliction, safe wherever we are.

Erasing horror and disgust,

Rewinding the sorrow and the rust.

Before our suffering’s suffering, hadn’t we suffered enough?

On the morning that we’re both 19 and newly on our own,

and all we know is each other and invisible homes,

we find two empty seats in the back of a car in an empty parking lot,

where all our bridges are abandoned and the cops have forgot.

And I can feel the difference when the day begins,

like all I know is, "This year will be the year we win.”

We smoke the paper from the banner from our past parades

and start again, before the memory of the mess we’ve made.

viii

Well I hope when you can’t hear what I am thinking,

you know I can’t always talk

but I’m always listening in an absence,

where you hate to feel uncared for,

pretending there’s nothing that you’re not prepared for.

Who are you lapping when you’re running from surrender

if life is a fatal race for all contenders?

To find the peace within the combat where we’re standing,

we have to make our history less commanding.

Well, our mercy is a boundary we’ll surrender

when love is a safer place we both remember.

Like an old estate that stands in no location

at the edge of an age of endless renovation.

And while all that noise competes for our attention,

we’ll meet on a quiet field in our own dimension.

We’ll step inside a world far less demanding

when we allow for somewhere less commanding.

ix

When you lift me out of me…

When you lift me out of me will I know when I’ve changed?

And when you bring me back to me,

will you bring me back to me, un-estranged?

Man, you’re already home and you don’t even know it.

You have a room you can return to, and you’ll never outgrow it.

See, you’re already home when you don’t know where to find it.

It’s not our house that we remember,

it’s a feeling outside it

when everyone’s gone but we leave all the lights on anyway.