1. |
Grace Days
03:20
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There are days now where I don’t think of you
Then word reaches me that you’re not taking care of yourself
And what am I supposed to do with that?
But I don’t reach out because I don’t know how to
And that’s something I’ve got to live with
Well I’ve burned my grace days, the people I have left
They either can’t or simply won’t relate
It’s not like I’m trying all that hard to connect
Easily flustered as I pray to forget
Spending each New Year in regional airports
Weighing the import of checking in on friends
As I struggle to reckon with the realization
That I’ve got next to nothing to show for all these years
Except a stutter, a shiver, my parents and my sisters
The faintest recollections of a town beside a river
Well I’ve burned my grace days
And that’s something I’ve got to live with
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2. |
Lately
03:00
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Well it’s granular now
As I shed the sheets in this empty beach house
You twitch to sleep and I trace the baseboard
To the side door
And I’m wide awake
I’ve tried to tie down
All the little things I think I can live without
Cause I don’t want to chase the afterglow
Of what I used to know anymore
So go on and tell me
What you’ve been doing lately
Cause I’m dying to know
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3. |
Wires / Enough
03:11
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I’m eating fast food frantically, outside of therapy
Six minutes late, really six years late now
As I try to figure out exactly what it means to be
A better brother, son and friend
To the people that trust me
Struggling lately
With even minor civilities
Spinning my own wheels
And feeling it seep out of me
So now I lash out constantly, even my family
Wires are crossed and “you’re losing your grip now”
“You’ve got to stop the way you’re always looking back as if
There’s anything left to gain from the places that you’ve been”
“Your skin is too thin”
As if that’s news to anyone
You’ve got to understand
That this isn’t how I meant to be
But if no one else
Ever believed in me
It’d be enough
You’d be enough
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4. |
Architect
03:52
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Without a touch of disrespect
Could someone tell the architect
It’s all coming down
Put together wrong
You built it up too tall
And now you can’t get it back
And I’m burning up
Over all these little things
Like the way your voice still rings
As I try to sleep, each night
And it’s bad enough
That I wake up sicker every morning
Knowing you won’t check up on me now
And you don’t
Even in my fever my dreams
Your conscience drags against the seams
That I just can’t unravel
You tied it up too tight
Now every almost every night’s
Another tangle that I can’t handle
And I’m trying to get back
To the things I loved four years ago
But they just seem to ring so hollow now
And it’s been a long time
Since I had to truly stand on my own feet
And try to prop myself back up
And I can’t
Cause I’m trying to rest, just to rest
Already foreclosed my chance to dream
Which is for the best, it’s for the best
Cause I’ve been splitting at the seams
And I still can’t level
With the odds of meeting you when I fall asleep
Where I can’t hide, my eyes have dried
It’s just this tempest in my chest
So I stay awake, knowing you wait
With all my twisted memories of what we had
My recollection still won’t serve me in the end
As I try to filter, things that happened
From what I built them up to be in my own head
The architect of all this sordid tapestry
And I can’t
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5. |
Level Set
03:29
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Let’s level set, this isn’t what we meant
Before I say something that I’d come to regret
Cause we want different things, you’d always say so
And I never understood how you’d purport to know just what I want
When I never did
But I still don’t
And I never will
Let’s level set, it was the right decision
Which I repeat to anyone who’s bold enough to seek me out
And get the closest thing to a straight answer
As if these constant platitudes would somehow make this go down smooth
And they never do
It didn’t matter
And it never will
And I’d never tell you just how to remember me
Cause it felt selfish after everything we’d seen
One more vacation that you never came back from
Just gone away
It drags me down
It holds me back
We can’t deserve
What we didn’t earn
We didn’t earn
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6. |
Notched
02:53
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The same cartilage is half-haunting me as
I’m hooked willingly to the hued history of
Your quaint pleasantry and my split memory of
A notched maple tree and what you meant to me
The stark symmetry of the pier next to me was
A frame boundary of where we came to be and
Our feet following it back to the water
Would make our undoing hit even harder
And I still see it all ending
As you told me “it’s not healthy
To want only when we’re lonely”
What you needed I just couldn’t be
My hands are dirty
You’d be the first to say so, you always were
It’s half-metaphor, it’s half-literal
You lined the walls with everything we’ve said before
Talking across your mouth
A tongue I couldn’t taste with words I’d never hear
It’s clear to me now
That was my first sin, my only sin
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7. |
Bedridden
03:54
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When we met you were sunburnt all the time
And I was painted in a set of colors that just couldn’t be mine
I’m bedridden, so good riddance
Learning to walk again, leaning on all my friends
Because I’m tired of living like a martyr
In the hope that someone notices
It’s a straight shot from what I’m not
To the life that you’re building
I hope it’s fulfilling to spit-shine
What you thought you’d find along the way
So keep pace with the aftertaste
And the way you always compare yourself to other people
It killed me because everyone’s burdens are different
And I’m still too young to be this undone
By what I didn’t do when I still knew you
And I can’t feel the seasons changing
But I can sense your feelings fading
When we met you were anxious all the time
It kills me because I always thought I’d be different
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8. |
Shelf Life
03:42
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“Do you ever think that maybe there’s a reason that
Your friends have stopped inviting you to things?”
As if I hadn’t traced the commonality
As if I really thought it was anyone else’s fault
So I’m counting creases in the sidewalk back to Clay Street
And I’m dodging questions about what we’re doing next
Cause I’m fine and you’re fine
But it’s hardly closure
And that’ll be something that I hold onto
After the shelf life of what we went through
You might not have meant it the way it passed your teeth
But I can only speak to the way it stuck with me
The way it sticks with me
And I want to be the person that my parents
Act like I am when they catch up with friends
About setting sons and what we’ve done
The ways we measure up to the things they want for us
The way my sister looks at my new brother
How I can’t fake that for all the years I’ve tried
So I’m packing boxes, my yearly practice
And I’m moving past this
And it’s watching other people
When they truly need each other
A crushing commentary
Hardly a framing issue
So I dread this rite of passage
Cause each time it’s temperamental
Unpack what I can manage
Cause you’re all I can remember
You’re all I can remember
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9. |
Balcony
02:14
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Well I’ve been sneaking into the balcony
Cause I don’t fit down on the floor
There was a time I knew you spoke to me
But I don’t feel that anymore
And it’s a shame now
The way it shakes out
I know my mother’s losing sleep each Sunday night
And I would change that
If I knew how to
And that’s something I’ve got to live with
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10. |
Ring Out
03:44
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Cause I haven’t unpacked for real since about 2009
And it’s a lot to process at once
Cause I’ve been running all this time
And there’s a certain uncertainty inherent
To signing one-year leases
For all the stability apparent
It all just seems so temporary now
There’s a fine line
Between making a statement and ruining family holidays
It’s tough, but I’ve seen tougher
And there’s a state of mind
For assigning meaning to the way these things shake out
Do you get anxious like I get anxious?
And it’s been so sobering
To see the way that people try to
Cull it at the breakers in a
Half-attempt to normalize the
Things we all experience at
Slightly different paces
If you won’t admit you’re struggling
Then no one knows to help you
Let it ring out
These are the things you think about
Before you fall asleep
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