1. |
Tooth Truth
01:30
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2. |
Family Reunion
03:56
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There are things about me no one knows.
They are in the air that I breathe,
And the pretzel crumbs wedged in my clothes,
And my strained carotid artery.
When I sing the weight becomes a lover,
And we argue whether god is real,
And we butt our heads like roman soldiers,
And we tell each other how to feel.
She says, “death is good, but life is better
because love’s in one but not the next!
And I promise you, my manic wonder:
we will never know.”
I killed a snake when I was young.
I bashed its head with a poorly-fashioned club.
I message girls when I get sad
to sexualize all the guilt I’ve ever had.
If we will never know, at least let me know you.
There is a heaven close. Isn’t that right?
There, beneath your clothes.
Sometimes I wish I was still
a feral kid dressed for the kill,
a pair of highwater jeans out in Charlottesville,
a family reunion I stained red.
I named that sucker “Jonny” after he was dead.
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3. |
Twin Cities Freak Out
01:46
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The insatiable hunger for the world, that I had when I was nine, returned when I saw a man’s calf flex in Minneapolis, love.
The sinew and vein, the fragility of life, the way you make the minutes go.
And it’s not, it’s not, something I would do again.
That being said, that being said, you’re everything but a friend.
I never thought it would be like this, hiding all the bones in the wall, of the memories I killed that I could’ve been more like every time I thought to call.
And it’s not about you anymore; it’s about what I used to be, frozen in a picture frame in the dining room staring back at me.
And my face has ag-ed, everything I loved then has dissipated; memories used to be funny things, but now I’m just solely incarcerated.
Harry likes to talk about group sex, and we played liveball in the shallows; in my pursuit of veganism, I will settle for your shadow.
That shit makes me panic like the thought of endless slumber, so instead let’s buy some sharpies and draw all over each other.
And I promise I won’t draw a penis or anything undignified, and you can draw a flower on the scars I have on my left side.
And everytime I think of you I fight another version of myself, just like Lupita on her family excursion in that movie that came out this year, I’d take a bet you saw it a thousand times.
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4. |
Bandit
03:12
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Her mother called her “Bandit,” but I never called her that
‘cause her mother died when she was just a kid.
My sister spoke of sacred words and pissed me off again;
I didn’t get it till the woman held the key in her mouth.
Like, come on; give me a hint. Give me a reason for it.
Give me a sign.
I pull my hand away from mom; she looks with hunted eyes.
When did I grow unable to take touch?
Sometimes I wonder what the world would be without my life.
Then the woman through the window just to say that it’d be the same.
Like, come one; stay for a while. I got nothing but time,
but nobody’s there.
Nobody’s there!
Come on; give me a hint. Give me a reason for it.
Give me a sign.
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5. |
Emblem of Love
03:22
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I am, I am everything. I am everyone, and nothing, and no one.
I’m the song that’s begun in your head when it’s late and you're having fun.
I may be none of these things, but I’m an emblem of love.
My dad sees the Holocaust in everyone, and nothing, and no one.
Before last night, before last night, I was scared of the flame and the lines on his face.
But they’re not scars, they are emblems of love.
Memory is enough for me tonight. I will focus on the light, I will focus on the...
Memory will take care of me tonight, while I focus.
I am, I’m a magazine. I’m a Jewish queen; heart of Esther, nerve of Jael’s hammering
rain on the pane, means it’s time for a walk. Grab the pocket knife,
and we’ll tear some holes through the history of love!
Nothing’s ever gonna fall into line. Replay that scene where Scarlett drinks, and I’ll tell you
how I need to be held.
Memory is enough for me tonight. I will focus on the light, I will focus on the...
Memory will take care of me tonight, while I focus.
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6. |
The Truth
05:56
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What’s the point of having a clean kitchen sink
If I can’t have you next to me
I can’t believe I thought about you like that for so long
What’s the point of writing checks and paying rent
If everything I own is trash
Gaining value only when domestic space is loved and shared
Flower shaw-led creature sing for me now
The beast from back home shared a bed with me
And the hippy who taught me how to fuck right
Led me to a farm born fashion queen
Tell me what I’m doing
‘Cause I don’t know
Everytime my purposes wax obsolete
Momentary terror strikes
Like what’s the point of living if we’re all just gonna die
I stumble out of bed and draw another breath
Thinking of my father again
If he can weather existential questions so can I
Bitter and triumphant I smile at the ground
Paranormal Thursdays on my side
What’s this feral truth we all have to hold down
Knowledge that there’s nothing when we die
Tell me what I’m doing
Tell me why
We’re all just creatures
Reach for my paw
If you can’t find it find the note I wrote your name on
Despite the fact that
We’ll never be
What’s the point of looking at you anyway
We’re just headlights traveling
On a car the size of what you mean to me through deep time
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7. |
Avarice
02:06
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8. |
The Tombs
05:31
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Reservoir watering thoughts steal you from me Leanne
Now I’m trapped in the trees singing I don’t know why to the darkness again
I imagine there was a chainsaw man
Revving his engine to things that I never was told by my mother like Jonny-boy you’re gonna die
I guess it’ll be fine ‘cause I’m running in circles and taking my clothes off at opportune times in this forest tonight
And I’m seeing my father in all kinds of flashbacks like dad I remember ‘cause you took a picture and
Coded computers and buried yourself in your love for my mother like right after school
At the tombs, at the tombs, at the tombs, at the tombs, at the tombs.
After temptation has fled I’ll be close to the split
Like the flyer inside the campus center basement that Micheljon read
Imagined amongst college-aged men
Beating their balance to things that I never was told by my mother like Jonny-boy you’re gonna die
I guess it’ll be fine ‘cause I’m running in circles and taking my clothes off at opportune times in this forest tonight
And I’m seeing my father in all kinds of flashbacks like dad I remember ‘cause you took a picture and
Coded computers and buried yourself in your love for my mother like right after school
At the tombs, at the tombs, at the tombs, at the tombs, at the tombs.
You played a game with beers and things and then I was born into the air just floating in
Particles particles my memory fails me
And you walked out into the night see nothing has changed since eighty-nine
And everything has I think has I think that moment behind it
Reservoir watering thoughts steal you from me Leanne
Now I’m trapped in the trees singing I don’t know why to my parents again
I imagine that love will come again
Spreading my ashes on things that I never was told by my mother like Jonny-boy you’re gonna die
I guess it’ll be fine ‘cause I’m running in circles and taking my clothes off at opportune times in this forest tonight
And I’m seeing my father in all kinds of flashbacks like dad I remember ‘cause you took a picture and
Coded computers and buried yourself in your love for my mother like right after school
At the tombs, at the tombs, at the tombs, at the tombs, at the tombs.
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9. |
Doctor Faustus
03:52
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I masturbate whenever I’m bored
I need to get out more
Trust me I hate myself
More than you hate that metaphor
And I act ignorant
Because I’m insecure again
I fall in love in seconds and then out in one
That fake persona Maggie’s crafted seems to be spot on
I am an ancillary version of a precocious son again
I self mythologize
But I can’t write as well as Beth
Bishop or Kerouac
So I’ll just take another breath
And punch the mirror out
While I consider my own death again
I’d be an atheist
But without God I would never sleep
After these surgeries
There’s not much left of me to keep
I’d sell the rest for laughs
And trust me I get those dirt cheap
Somebody castrate me
Somebody take away my phone
Somebody curse me out
But please be mindful of your tone
I’m lying to myself
We’ll say I’m better off alone again
Is that machine gun fire
No it’s conversation among friends
Why do these groupthink vibes
Fill my mind with moralizing vengeance
I efface myself
Just to get attention
It seems like all of this has happened, happened, happened
A thousand times
I’m not okay
I don’t need shrinks
I have two scars
I’m sorry that
I changed so much
I made you cry
I have no me
But you have me
Yes all of you
My tainted joints
Are prostitutes
I sold ‘em off
But had to pay
Compare myself
To Doctor Faustus
Nectarine
I bit into
Had bugs inside
From Arkansas
I wanna cry
I cannot cry
And you should laugh
At this white guy
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10. |
Jesus Christ
01:41
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It’s been fun but baby I’m tired out now
The color of your eyes sounds like a
Forty-five Ford at my bedroom door
And I’m afraid of you
You’re like Jesus Christ
I am a bit dramatic and overly somatic
Can I kiss you
I’m talking to a postcard
I am the only one breathing inside this room
And I’m afraid of you
You’re nowhere
Like Jesus Christ
And everywhere at once, at once you are
And everywhere at once, at once you are
And everywhere at once, as long as I believe
What the men in black and white who touch kids
tell me
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11. |
Twenty
03:31
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Maybe Tuesday we’ll exchange glances
Dancing quadrangle villains in my head
Won’t you tell me something with your words
I can’t spell the simplest of things like
Yes or foresight, patience with a pen
It’s too permanent minutes move in you
Won’t you tell me there’s more to feeling
Than some grizzly nurture-driven crutch
What is love if not something to save
We could freeze all the ponds in autumn
Forage wild apples by the road
All I dream of is a calloused hand
Someone else’s western is better
Than none than a total lack thereof
Would you be an outlaw for my love
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12. |
Thanksgiving 2019
02:55
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Thanksgiving day I have seen twenty-one of these things
I miss you like the turkey meat that I don’t eat anymore
Decolonize this vegan side dish
And make me feel again
Family gathers ‘round to laugh too much at nothing
I miss you like the apple pie that Margaret should’ve spent time on
Decolonize this vegan side dish
And make me feel again
Not that you have to
And you won’t
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13. |
Jessie
02:40
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We’ll say her name is Jessie
Otherwise it’s hard to sing
And though I’m sorry for disguising
I’d be sorrier to tell her that I love her
In another song
Another masturbation-filled confession
‘Cause it’s not high school
She’s not dancing with her arm on my
Discussion and another one
And another one the phone-line after dinner
I saw baby
And then proceed to ramble till she hates me
Jessie I have got a sickness
Jessie I think of you
When I am at my most earnest
I don’t know what it is
I lost my only friendship
In a greenhouse filled with heat and dead tomatoes
So I got emo
And I told myself I’m tired of competing
And another day
Came and went like my fickle lebido
Sex disgusts me but you know Jessie never
All she did was trust me
So I came up with
This romantic version of our future
And I fucked it
In pursuit of momentary pleasure
Jessie I have got a sickness
Jessie I think of you
When I am at my most earnest
I don’t know what it is
I don’t know what it is
I don’t know what it is
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14. |
The Second Truth
05:15
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Now that it's been so long
I am awake to you
I am alive in you
It’s only ‘cause I’ve realized
The state of my insides
Much like our state
Insecure and biding its time
Before the big eruption hits
And we are
Allowed to die
I promised Gabba I’d be stronger
Than my origins allow
So now I’m sobbing on a carpet in
A place that won’t exist in less than
Thirty-seven lifetimes and I
Can’t even accept my own
‘Cause my God doesn’t save
So when my mouth doesn’t speak
My conscience is a clam shell on a killing spree
And what must you think
You must think I’m a tyrant
Or a vampyric person
But I try so hard to love myself
I just find it oh so hard to love
The lair of lust and feigned indifference that creeps out from behind me
And the well-intentioned worry-ridden side of my mind at night
I promised Gabe that I’d be stronger
Than my old gizmo desire
But then I succame
And nothing ever changes
Nothing ever will
Will you be the patient so that I can be the pill
No of course you won’t say yes
No one ever does
So I’ll just stand out by the side door and watch my friends suck down some beers because
Rest will come my darling
Oh my darling Jonny
Though I cannot love you
I’m so glad you love me
Enough to keep me breathing
Enough to lay me down
Enough to keep me singing
Late at night when there’s
Nobody around
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15. |
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16. |
Night at the Bar
04:13
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Those jeans make for raindrops and towering thoughts
The kind I have when I get so deep in
To my mind I start to vomit sexy memories
That smile is not sacred I’ve seen it before
It’s loaded up like Harvey Oswald’s gun
Ready to snipe my levity off of the catbird’s seat it’s on
Life is nothing more than a night at the bar
It starts off innocent enough I guess
But by the end we’re blacking out and forgetting what we did
The search for love my one unwavering thought
I guess I’ll just extend the metaphor so
I would rather drink myself to death than end this night alone
No love hold on gently
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17. |
Thanks, and Goodbye
02:37
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I don’t crave content
I didn’t crave you till after the darkness
After you said it was trouble it’s funny
How people turn on their memories I can’t
They mean too much to me
You said I’m sorry
I stood and braced to deflect some of the pity
But I couldn’t it grazed my ribs and my kidney
Cutting selectively to dismantle
The metal in my left knee
I wish I’d never talked to you back then
I thought I was clever suddenly stripped of my
Mom-given walking
Doctors and nurses and rabbis were talking
When I lost my will to live
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18. |
Wilbert
02:12
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Now you’re back
I don’t mind
I tell myself in the morning light
That it will be alright
That autumn won’t swallow me
That it will be just fine
That someone will comfort me
Got the call
That his heart
Could not support the frame below
Oh and how my sister cried
So much and in such a tone
Yes it’s so funny how
We can all transact love and love and still be alone
Pick up the telephone and ring me
I won’t forget you
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