Interloper

Thought I had you figured out

Thought that I could tear you down one doubt at a time

I’ve been known to go without

Mostly just pissed off, if not petrified

Be not apart from me

Though that I could try to run

Thought that I could drown out your voice with the blood on your hands

Just close your eyes, knuckles white

Scream your truth and tribalize

I’m deafened and don’t understand

Be not apart from me

I’m hardly even holding on

I’m impatient and angry and lost in my blame

What would you have me do? Will you bleed with me too?

Don’t look at me, don’t go away

Be not apart from me

Whatever Light We Have

Midnight, 7 hours to go

Cumulonimbus in my frontal lobe

How do I explain this world

To my little boys and my courageous girl

I don’t know…

Most days I wonder where You’re at

The kids are dressed in scarlet letters and tinfoil hats

Doubled down, content to be

Indifferent, self-sufficiently

My God I’m waiting for the day

I lock my outrage in a cage and throw the key away

What the point of justice

If injustice is the cost

What’s the point of judging

If the jury’s never wrong

What’s the point of wanting

When the giving breaks my back

Keep trying to grow

With whatever light we have

You asked to break bread

I just prayed for you instead

All good intention

With no guts to give a damn

Who needs questions when your love is laced with blame?

Who needs answers when your side looks all the same?

Was your skin ever in the game?

Does your side look all the same?

It’s not too late to change

Midnight, hundred miles to go

Think I see headlights on my side of the road

The Grateful and Grieving

It’s Thursday and the hour’s getting late

It’ll be Friday before you know it

See, Eric’s had a lot on his plate

He’s going through it but he don’t show it

He gets dressed in a stir, goes to grab his keys for work

From where they hang but they’re not there

See the dementia’s gotten hard and Eric can’t drive a car

And Eric hasn’t worked in a year

He finds them and heads toward the interstate

And he turns onto I-40

Cracks a beer and turns up the country greats

90 miles an hour the wrong way

Tell me, did you see my car? Did you slam the breaks real hard?

Or did you welcome wrath with a grin?

Well Eric wound up dead and Eric crushed my leg

And he broke me on the outside and within

Could I even reach You if You were listening?

Would I believe You if I was beloved?

Do I dare decide the dead and deserving

It’s eating me alive, think I just need some time

People say the most confusing things

Like I was too “good” for God to take me

Tell me, would you dare to dream my dreams?

And feel the smoke and flames that wake me

I can’t recall how to care. Who really died? Who was spared?

Is mercy still leading me?

Why does my miracle make my finger wanna pull

A trigger back to where I ought to be?

Could I even reach You, are you even listening?

Can I forgive you if I can’t forgive me?

Do I dare decide the dead and deserving

It’s eating me alive, I’m running out of time

Hallelujah and amen

I’m the grateful and grieving

Living to die again

Hallelujah and amen

Beloved and bleeding

Are you suffering?

Hallelujah and amen

We’re the grateful and grieving

Living to die again

Hallelujah and amen

Beloved and bleeding

Are you suffering?

The farthest you’ve felt

Is the nearest you’ve been

Sometimes a thing ain’t right and there’s no way to fix it

Guess you needed to go that night and I needed saving

What will I decide with the time I’ve been given

Gonna hold onto my wife, gonna join my kids outside

We’ll talk again tonight

Demimonde

Think that I met you one night

Standing out in the snow

Paint peeling and off-white

Bathing in lampshade glow

See how my hands keep shaking?

Sip from a polished prayer

All of my fears are naked

All of my secrets stare

Beneath

Think I shoulda left by now

I’ll stay, leave a part of me

I can still feel your fingers

Curl around my throat

I remember gardenias

And the poems we spoke

What if you make me see-through

And you’re terrified

What if you’re make believe too

And the hands on my neck are mine

Release

I really should have left by now

I’ll stay, leave a second piece

My invocation on the tip of my tongue

A garden of nightshade that I walk among

Chemical creatures dancing embalmed

I aim to please you in the demimonde

Please leave, slow down

Be gone, please stay

Just go, you’re not

Away, ok

IT’s late, too late

I won’t, you can’t

Stop this from happening

Puncture and pose me, to haunt and to hold

Me under in arms reach, carnal and cold

Name me and know me, crown me in gold

What are you thinking? What if I’m weak, what if we’re wrong?

Give me one reason I wasn’t a monster all along

You’re an invitation I politely decline

An arachnid patience biding time

Beautiful creatures become intertwined

We are both the damned and the divine

Greenhouse

Came in camellia-clad

Straight to the precipice

I wanted you so badly

Each chrysanthemum kiss

We went dancing by the greenhouse then

Azaleas brought the ache, you

Might have called 8 times

I think I wanted to break your heart

When your mouth touched mine

We’re not dancing by the greenhouse now

We’re not dancing by the greenhouse now

Went and wasted what you gave somehow

All I do is take, and take, and take

Give me the guilt and the greyhound

No apology

I’ll hand you hell and the high ground

For you to spit on me

Ain’t that all that I’m good for?

Dependent disconnect

(Your hands around my neck)

Lovin me is wisteria-like

Fragrantly choking you to death

Forgive me

I’m sorry

All I do is take and take and take

I see failure in the flowers

And all the care I failed to sow

I knew love in every hour, that you gave me but

I knew it most when you let me go

I hope you’ve got a garden now

Though it didn’t turn out like we planned

I hope I’m finally off the hook

Promise I won’t bring it up again

Mockingbird

Steal a kiss of honeysuckle wind, again

Eyes crypt tight and cauterized, breathe in

Went and messed with that birds’ nest, you

Told me to stay away

But when do I stay away?

There’ll be hell to pay

Daddy’s gone to get the discipline, I’m sick

For every crime, his justice strikes, skin rips

Marbled hues of violet bloom

You say I’ll never change

One day I’m gonna change

Daddy I’m a mickingbird

Tryin to sing like you

Is this what love allows?

Is it too late to make you proud?

It’s too late

Doll it up and make it prodigal

Leavin’s hardly ever logical

It ain’t love unless it’s free

Not too confrontational

Fear is better congregational

Pull a thread and unravel with me

Sit a while and learn to be

Satisfied with a shrug theology

Darlin’, I’m a mockngbird

Hangin’ on a willow tree

Just gonna sing my song

May it go wherever the wind blows me

Wherever the wind blows

I don’t know what you meant

Being cautiously counterfeit

I’m gonna reinvent

And know love free of punishment

Have mercy

Honest

If I’m being honest, you’re an anvil on my chest

Aim where the heart is, see what Father thought was best

The cool of an August evening and an email that just said

You couldn’t forgive me, even if God did

Well if we’re being honest, do you ever feel alone?

Do you go to the movies and get reminded that I’m gone?

Do you ever get bothered by what our choices have become?

Does it get harder forgetting a son?

I was angry, and I had every right to be

You ever wanted to break free or discover what it means

To feel so hollow and end up losing everything

Just to see what you’re made of

Can you hear me?

So if we’re being honest I think I made my stepmom sick

A compulsive, lying boy who chewed his fingers to the quick

And pulled out his eyebrows and stole things and wet his bed til he was 12

Where was the kindness? Where was the help?

We built a new house, where not one picture of me hung

Sit and don’t come out boy, best remain where you belong

Well, I failed a gym class so hey wouldn’t see the bruises you had left

If only your pride had kept your rage in check

I’m not angry, though I have every right to be

I can’t change things but that doesn’t change that

I’m stuck looking at your face in the mirror, your reflection on repeat

Tell me father can you hear me

Got kicked out of college for what should have been a crime

You were a mountain my achievements could not climb

Rather than face it, I walked out, now you don’t know my name

My secrets are all out, can you say the same?

I looked at my wedding for a man that never showed

He has three grandkids he’s never tried to know

Not even a phone call and I very nearly died

I can’t let you go, I’ve tried

Must you torture every time I try to pray

We move forward, but the seasons never change

That I still love you so much that I begin to hate

God, the father, the son. the sinner and the saint

Tell me father can you hear me?

The Best You Could

Couldn’t understand you then

How what you said and what you did

Could ever be defended

Why you were never around

Why bitterness was your best friend

I think I understand you now

Somehow

Took your wounds and raised a wall

If no one saw your suffering, how could you ever fall?

Greif had made a ghost of you

Could you even love the way that you wanted to?

If love was a language never taught to you

Then life was a teacher, cold and cruel

I want to tell you what I wouldn’t walking out the door

I think you did the best you could

If I’m ever on your mind

Know I' hope you’ve found the peace that’s been so hard for you to find

I think there’s goodness yet to grow

May you come to find the mercy you were always meant to know

If love was a language never taught to you

Then life was a teacher, cold and cruel

Gonna tell you what I should have walking out the door

I know you did the best you could

Sad Dads Club

Sad dad’s a little overstimulated

Outworked and outperformed

He’s stuck and badly under-medicated

Unsure, unlike before

He feels a tad bit angry that he maybe

Doesn’t know himself

Tell me it’s alright

IF you are willing, make me well

Sad dad dabbles in dissociation

Deep breath, now overthink

Neck deep, treading in the isolation

Now, fold some clothes and clear the sink

Each spiral leaves him shaken, he starts thinking

Things are best without him at all

Tell me it’s alright

If you are willing, make me well

Sad dad forgets the boy that used to daydream

Of a family to call his own

Boy, he would be so proud of who hebecame

How he’s fought and he’s not alone

Be confident of this, that He who begins

Good works will see them through

Tell me it’s alright

If you are willing, make me well

Y.D.W.M.A

Sometimes I just want to hurt

Subconscious self-punisher

Won’t even try to resist, you

Self-loathing narcissist

You think that you’re gonna quit, or fit in

You know you’re inadequate

I’m so scared you don’t ant me around

Had my first panic attack experimentally

Was it because I tripped or was I happy?

I fell and lost my breath, oh my God

Contentment felt like death, and

I’m so scared you don’t want me around

Fix me!

How’s your theology? Defeatist!

Name thy enemy! Guns and Jesus!

You think that you’re gonna break it, fake

It’s habit to an addict of validation

And I’m so scared you don’t want me around!

Big Things Coming

I can’t fall asleep

Calculating possibilities

On how to get you all to notice me

Quite unbecoming

I can’t help myslef

Algorithmic addict, overwhelmed

But posturing so perfect, can’t you tell?

Yeah, big things coming

I’ll make you a spectacle

Compare and declare whatever version you like

Afraid I’m forgettable

Emaciate my idle time

Storefront catastophes

Dopamine deficient devotees

Entertainment is the tradegies

Virtue signal then go back t sleep

Here’s who you ought to be

Disagreement and despondency

Could you leave a like and follow me

Technological lobotomy

I’ll make you a spectacle

Compare and declare whatever you think is right

Afraid I’m forgettable

Got big things coming, yeah I’m doing fine

Don’t be so skeptical

Compare and eclare what you don’t understand

I made you a spectacle

I want what you’ve got til it’s right in my hands

I’ve been doing great

I’ll disappear and then dysregulate

Diminish and self-deprecate

Ideate and then invalidate

Breathe and Affirm

Shut your eyes, catch your breath now

They’re only thoughts, there’s a way out

If you take the time to remember

So afraid, settle down love

Don’t give a damn where it came from

Now, send them back dismembered

Please, hold me now

While I breathe and affirm

Show me how

Stay by my side, won’t you please return

To what you know, I know it’s tough here

It ain’t a lot but it’s enough dear

I can’t say for certain when this too shal pass

And if it’s worse before it’s better

I’m right here know I never

Left, and I love you

(chorus repeat)

Let the mold hear the maker

It’s not the form, but the nature

Of a heart that matters most to me

Scream out loud, shake and labour

Here and now, never later

Come face your fear together

(chorus repeat)

Let the meek

Inherit the earth

Now and forevermore

The Gallery

In April, I cried at the gallery

Ten minutes I heaved, admission was free

International crowd

Never one to be stirred through paint

Never did understand, never quite touched hands

With old men in the clouds

You named her the Lady with Parasol

I think you said to be still, or this moment will

Be lost to the wind

She touched my shoulder

And as I looked at her, she looked down at me

And I saw what you’d seen

What’s in front of you?

What do you make of it, what do you make from it

Do you dare forget?

I’m not one to make the most of it

But I’ll be dead and gone, what I make moves on

Better make it well

Take what’s beautiful

Make it beautiful

However you can, help it grow

See it, beautiful

Keep it beautiful

However you can, help me know

That it’s still beautiful

God, I forgot it though

I’d really ought to know by now

That you still care

I think that’s all that’s asked of me

In April, I cried at the national gallery

Hydrangea

Darlin lift your head up

Look me in the eye

You don’t need to hide your face

Or read between the lines

My little hydrangea

Heavy is the rain

You’re bending under burdens you were meant to give away

Honey ain’t it strange

Lovin you is lovin change

I won’t take my rest til I got to

Tell me, who would I love if it’s not you?

I couldn’t let you go if I had to

Tell me, how do I live if I don’t have you?

It’s the look that you give me

When I talk too much

It’s you in your wedding dress

Eating Pizza Hut

My little hydrangea

Heavy is the rain

We’re breaking under beauty that we’re made to give away

Honey ain’t it strange

Lovin’ you is lovin’ change

I won’t take my rest til I got to

Tell me, who would I love if it’s not you?

I couldn’t let you go if I had to

Tell me, how do I live if I don’t have you?

Hymn for the Heavy and Hopeful

Burden up, ye heavy shouldered

Searching maps in the rain

Bleeding out left me colder

Earning love won me the blame

Self esteem ain’t jurisdiction

Could you lend me some care if you stay?

Reading me feels like fiction

Hoping you could turn a page

Burden up all ye beleagured

Which tragedy will it be today?

Loaded up on caffeine and cheap words

And all the stones we cast on the way

Dig your heels, stand and deliver, or

Deconstruct and call it a day

You wanted grace but you didn’t give her

You needed faith but you couldn’t stay

So burden up ye heavy and hopeful

Bound for greatness and the grave, have you

Heard enough of the anecdotal?

Is it kindness that you crave?

Mercy’s always played in the minor

Terrified of the tension she makes

Suffering sits sweetly by her

Greeting each and all as she plays

So come and follow me

To windowed eternity

Favored and wandering

Savor while suffering

Have mercy

IS THERE ROOM ENOUGH FOR ME

Where is refuge in a levee?

Where is shelter in the sea?

Is there strength within a sinner?

Is there room enough for me?

Is there a room in your house without a roof?

Is there a day in your courts without a song?

Is there a place at your table without a meal?

Where am I to be when I don’t belong?

I’m weary of the funeral

I’m ready for the feast

Ain’t used to being useful

I’m barely bold enough to be

Is there room enough for me?

Where is the break within the body?

When there is death within the womb

What is choosing, what is chosen?

When there is life within the tomb

Aren’t you weary of the funeral?

Aren’t you ready for the feast?

Ain’t used to being useful or beautiful

I’m barely bold enough to be

Is there room enough for me?

I ain’t selling you for silver

But I’m not buying with all I have

I’d rather have your arms than what you give

Within and without, full of doubt, just as I am

Just as I am, without one plea

Is there room enough for me?

Weighted

Iron out each wrinkle, and every painful dividend

From the tossing and turning, craving and yearning sheets of discontent

Teach me something tangible, make me feel like I’m a child again

Or should I count my blessings, never addressing the sorrows that I’ve spent

Give me hope, round a corner or behind some door

Oh, I’ve been so disappointed before

Need a return, need to relearn that I’m sure

That it’s all worth the weight

Relentlessly impatient, premeditative me

Defensive existence in passive resistance to borrowed sympathy

If I could be remarkable, and a little less sensitive

Tuned to a sound, more like a noun and less an adjective

Give me hope, round a corner or behind some door

Oh, I’ve been so disappointed before

Need a return, need to relearn that I’m sure

Oh won’t you take it away, is my grief something to comprehend?

I’m sick of making mistakes, look me in the eye and make me sure

That it’s all worth the weight

Open mouth and shining eyes I stood, drinking in the sound

I looked as if reminded of something I had found

Scales

Turn now and don’t look, read all the wrong books

And learned for the grade and not the content

Dressing up in layers is something second nature

When I stopped loving you I started hating me

Separate the scales from my skin

And cut to the heart of me

It’s grown from the outside in

Ready as I’ll ever be

If I’m made in your image, framed but never finished

Changing to something more like yours

Though I won’t admit it, if only for a minute

I’d rather stay insecure

Separate the scales from my skin

And cut to the heart of me

It’s grown from the outside in

Ready as I’ll ever be

I wish I’d been made of steel or stone

Than something that feels

I’d rather what’s been shed never regrow

Nevertheless, some wounds just won’t heal

Veins

Hush child, take heart, run not from who you are

Caught in consequence like feuding tides

Knitted to love like your mother, formed to fight like your father 

In time, wrong will be made right

Screaming out something unsung, suppressed under fire by a rifled tongue

Reaching up and out, you see?

Special gets lost in a crowd, a loose change word, obnoxiously loud

A carnival banner held by cheap color

Creature of contradiction, beloved but made to live in

Between the stones of hypocrites and the feet of fishermen

See, royalty’s in your veins, what you carry in your name

Lifts the face of the beggar and brings a king to shame

I’ve compromised all my choices with bad situations and voices

Of a crowd that pays its entry fees in stifling words and melodies

Creature of contradiction, beloved but made to live in

Between the stones of hypocrites and the feet of fishermen

Courage on my nametag cause I’m too afraid to show it in a 

Fleet of sailors with anchors who can’t decide when to throw them

I’d have been a better man all my life if I had seen

Reaching for you, hopefully, could just mean the death of me

Sink

Enough of the nostalgia, my stomach’s tangled up and tied

I’ve been walking on a razor’s edge, faith hangin by a thread

From what’s divided

So batten down the hatches, caught between the Devil and the Deep

While I try to measure worth in red, hangin from a figurehead 

I’m undecided

I’m still flipping the lightswitch and sprinting to bed

Afraid of the dark, afraid of the dark

Though we’re taking on water, if this is the end

Sink towards the sunrise, sink towards a sunrise

Full of blood and thunder, or maybe I’m just full of myself

I’m searching to find some other door to a room I’ve never seen before

Some new horizon

I’m still flipping the lightswitch and sprinting to bed

Afraid of the dark, afraid of the dark

Though we’re taking on water, if this is the end

Sink towards the sunrise, sink towards a sunrise

Lilies

Oh how long must I carry on

Heedless heart, keep me not apart

From where tides taste sweet, where sky and water meet

By your leave, grant me a reprieve

Save me now, resurrect somehow

Give me rest, oh god just give me rest

Amphibian

Lately it feels as if living’s almost like

We’re walking with lanterns in marshes at night

Whatever weather comes upon me, whatever tragedy befalls

Pessimistic persistently, prone to worry through it all

Just wanna be steady, steady 

Don’t look back now

Trade a jaded goodness for a whole humanity

And though under earth and throneless I will be

While I live all earth is under me

Just wanna be steady, steady

Don’t look back now

No I don’t feel ready, ready

Looking back now

Even if you’re gone, I’m still on your side

Even if I’m wrong, know that I tried

Exodus

Feel my hands as they shake, part my clothes and touch my chest

Resuscitate and reject, exploit and disconnect

Did you send lions to chase, why does obedience mean more than pace

Oh what’s killing me outweighs what’s saving me

All that made this house, all that made this house a home has failed

Arrived only to run

Why does it feel like defeat when I’ve lost nothing but my self conceit

Taken in in, to be forced to leave

All that made this house, all that made this house a home has failed

Arrived only to run

Do I have potential or is this pit a consequence

Arrived, arrived, arrived only to run

I wanna be alright

Just wanna be alright

I need to be alright

Just wanna be alright

Coronary

Flashes of light painted in clear sky

That was the night that we couldn’t sleep

Six feet under, buried my head in your hair

Still no thunder but the breath in my ear

Like paper in paraffin you drifted to sleep

While I lay staring at popcorn on the ceiling

In cyclical motion, a wilted devotion spins

Round my ceiling fan, asking again, again

These inescapable questions, like how I’m bent to confess sins

That aren’t my own, is this all overblown?

I think I need a courage of a coronary kind

For resurrection something needs to die

I guess no one is told what would have happened

But I’m getting older and I can’t imagine

Quite like I used to holding your hand

Round and round again, just like my ceiling fan

These inescapable questions, like how I’m bent to confess sins

That aren’t my own, is this all overblown?

Please for once could being honest honestly feel like it’s worth it

Because it’s not been worth being what I’m not

I need a courage of a coronary kind 

For resurrection something needs to die

Breezewood

Another day in autumn, autumn, another bitter microcosm

Of hollow refrain to inundate the mundane

Were you there before in some metaphor

Could it have been the bird at my window or a breeze from the wood?

I miss walking in tall grass and talking with dad

Wishing evergreen in the changing leaves

Though I have left home, I can’t seem to leave

Wishing memory would stay away from me

I remember when I wake in the morning, when I lay down at night

When I wake in the middle, that you’re still beside me

But then I wonder if you like me, I still wonder if you care

No one said in chasing fire I had to fight for air

I miss walking in tall grass and talking with dad

Wishing evergreen in the changing leaves

Though I have left home, I can’t seem to leave

Wishing memory would stay away from me

Remember

7X70

Tired and pretending not to be, certain only in uncertainty

Beautiful, proud and cold hating how she looked at me

But the more I saw the more I needed to see

It’s been so long since we’ve spoken

Can what’s turned to stone in turn be broken

Fools and family are all the same to me

What’d I tell you, who are you to say, frozen in fear I chose to stay

Though I never liked to kiss her, still I miss the taste

Even though it’s foolish I’m still afraid

It’s been so long since we’ve spoken

Can what’s turned to stone in turn be broken

Feeling cold and counterfeit, still content with discontent

Breathe, breathe

Seven times seventy

Breathe, breathe

Why must everything this side of Eden feel more like a funeral than freedom

I only hoped, I had only hoped to be great too

Holidays

The world I cherished has come apart

The end of most days feels like the start

I’ve seen such wrong done in your name

What I fell in love with has changed

But maybe, just maybe, I’m ready by knowing I’m not

And maybe, just maybe there's worth in knowing I fought

And maybe this dream ends and I am met by the morning

And dewdrops turn ocean as I see you before me

So make me blood and iron

Make me lamb and lion

Make me tough and tender

Make me wild and good

Make be bright eyed

Make me thick skinned

Further up, further in

All 29 years, it was worth it

Every doubt and fear, it was worth it

Each time I was wrong, it was worth it

And writing each song, it was worth it

When I think of my friends, it was worth it

When I hold my kids, it was worth it

When I kiss my wife, it was worth it

And in the end, it’s worth it, it’s worth it