i see hope again i'm laughin' loud in a crowd of new friends yeah i feel social once again talkin' is easy, i'm extendin' my limbs these folks are forgetful but i'll forgive 'em 'cuz i'm not important and that is my sin some things are hard to leave to rest some things are harder to forget like the rubber bands taut in my chest oh but i know pretty girls don't light their own cigarettes i'm out of work again i've got time but no money to spend so i'll hit the streets once again i wheel and i deal, and i dance with the wind i wanted to thank you for lettin' me in 'cuz i am a dog, drippin' with shit some things are hard to leave to rest some things are harder to forget like the rubber bands taut in my chest oh but i know pretty girls don't light their own cigarettes no pretty girls never light their own cigarettes

another boy who doesn't care another bore but i still stare voice is low, drips through the air chest is broad with wiry hair if i could just lay my head there if i could just lay my head there... another girl with fabric hair another artifice au pair she's got jewels, so debonair armed with tattoos and a soulful flair and now i see her everywhere now i see her everywhere...

well all the apostles they're sittin' in swings sayin' "i'd sell off my savior for a set of new rings and some sandals with the style of straps that cling best to the era" so all of the bussinessers in their unlimited hell where they buy and they sell and they sell all their trash to each other but they're sick of it all and they're bankrupt on sellin' and all of the angels they'd sell off your soul for a set of new wings and anything gold they remember the people they loved their old friends and i've seen through 'em all seen through 'em all seen through most everything all the people you knew were the actors all the people you knew were the actors well i'll go to college and i'll learn some big words and i'll talk real loud goddamn right i'll be heard they'll remember the guy that said all them big words he must've learned in college and it took a long time but i've come clean with myself i come clean out of love with my lover i still love her loved her more when she used to be sober and i was kinder

the store was out of reds well, i guess i'm stayin' in bed no i won't pick up the phone y'know it's best to leave me alone when i'm without my nicotine i turn into a fiend a fiend why won't it ever leave i can't move no i can't breathe not without that cravin' rush no i just can't get enough it's a hunger i can't control no i'm never growin' old old

oh margeaux you got them big green eyes i know you worry you talk too much but i don't mind you make me smile when i don't want to yeah i guess you could say you pick me up when i'm blue all these cliches just to say i think i really like you i wrote this song for you 'cuz i'm fuckin' broke but you deserve somethin' sweeter than cherry smoke i love your laugh and that crook in your nose the way your face lights up is contagious and it shows that you are one of the sweetest people i have ever known i wanted to say that you help me feel less afraid and i don't care when we're hangin' out and stayin' up too late work is stupid and i won't go anyway let's just stay in bed and wish the world away we're at the end of this song i wrote for you i hope it helps you understand how i think of you and maybe one day i'll play this song for a million fans or two but it won't mean shit to me if i can't sing to you

i never said that we weren't friends but i can't have you comin' over again i know i've been a bit austere border on the rash and severe it's best if i don't answer my phone and leave you alone i'm on the el in full majestics climb out a window or craft fresh hysterics i know it's a bit much to bare the people on the street always stare they know i'm drunk or halfway stoned leave me alone an apology song for something i didn't know was wrong but retrospect demands a second check i'm sorry this is all of me i'm sorry i don't know how to be i'm sorry i always sing off key i'm sorry i'm sorry

change people don't change people don't change when you want them to oh change people don't change you still got a lot of drugs to do oh change people don't change people don't change when you want them to yeah i i looked the wrong way crossin' a one way street that day oh it's like i'll accept regret's a paradise regret's a paradise no dice you don't have to shake your fists 'cuz change people don't change people don't change when you want them to oh more children it's more so much more than you can do so much and so many savin' up your shiny pennies all my wishin' pennies have made up my mind all my wishin' pennies made up my mind down in depths of the friendliest sea i found myself i was followin' me down in the depths of the friendliest sea i found me yeah change people don't change people don't change when you want them to yeah i i looked the wrong way crossin' a one way street that day oh it's like i'll accept regret's a paradise regret's a paradise no dice you don't have to shake your fists cause change, people don't change... you still got a lot of drugs to do you got a lot of drugs you got a lot of drugs to do got a lot of drugs...

she sleeps next to me layin' still in soft purple sheets and now i watch the changing of leaves out the window over her head out the window over her bed stay asleep i'll turn off the tv let's enjoy this morning in peace and i swore i heard you mumble in your sleep i wish i could spend all my time in bed now that's a thought still burnt into my head but that's make believe or a faux reprieve how are you lyin' in those sheets when you got a world to see was i too naive did you need more time to grieve i didn't mean to be so mean but please speak to me now i always drink my coffee black drinkin' wine like some kind of goddamn aristocrat smokin' too much just bought another pack and the other morning i thought of you i was lyin' on my back lookin' out the window over my bed into an alley dry and dead i'm sorry i pushed away but I don’t think i should’ve stayed you were feeling so far away but still in my dreams you say “meet me in a beautiful place on a crisp autumn day on a bridge up northside way spanning industrial decay” so i went to that place in a cold november rain and i swore i saw your face in the graffiti on a train there ain’t no bridge in this town that ain’t worth walking down that ain’t somewhere rough and tumble and gets you yearnin’ for uptown but alone it’s not the same are these tears or is this rain? i miss her tossing in her sleep and that symposium of leaves

half past noon and we rise in a haze ain't seen straight in three fuckin' days these walls are gray and they whisper my name if i don't get out i'll rot all away inaction has consequence we'll share the shame the future is only a game... glued to the tube as hours slip away i smoke weed every fucking day i feel hollow, my mind is abstract coronation of a new space cadet but my mind still follows me i never feel alone and i never feel at home... i'm a machine i am wrought with decay i break down every other day my mind is wires frayed at contact speech is lacking my limbs are all slack

we've come to replace your clock's old stubborn hands (we are the answer to why they never had a chance) it was not so long ago that the world was mostly slow the age of iron, steam, and speed turned a stroll to a stampede but we've come to increase time in between ticks 'cuz there's romance in the slow dances 'cuz they're fertile in hush futile in haste these are your nerves this is how they taste well i can't count how many times i've been outdone by nihilism joined the march that splits an open heart into a schism and i cower at the thought of other people's expectations and yet still hand over mine to them travel where you are tourism is sin these are the ruins left behind you can't take pictures of them if what they say is true then you become what you chew if it decays spit it out affectation is a drought that you wait through when you hate everything that you do you wanna live outside the groove then fine but it's there like a flower blooming in your ears open up your mouth pollinate your peers nothing reminds the mind of power like the cheap odor of plastic leaking fumes we crave consume the rush it feels fantastic but like power turns to mold like a junkie going cold i need a fix of a little tenderness

so this is the screaming across the sky–– from the other side, a canister lobbed forth by an assailant unknown with sleek silver sides interrupted only by bold blue lettering, yet in this stream its color is lost as a glint in the sunshine, arch of smoke its monotonous rainbow. So this is the gravity, the five zeros, the rocket obfuscated by itself, a plot device to render any end recursive, and one would think it’d have more heft: more of a V2, a Tiananmen tank, a thing undeniable and indelible, but it’s the minutiae and unspoken and unseen that disrupts deepest the tranquility of any scene. three weeks later, it’s still a struggle to breathe. fifty-nine years ago, in his French admonition and Algerian call to attention, Frantz Fanon laid it raw & bare with cerebral prescience: any and all acts of violence on a people will be met with an eventual & equal display of force. Newtonian & Draconian in his language & logic, his Marxist conclusion proves itself again & again: a violent system breeds a violent collapse. so we’ve returned to the total disruption of the system, lobbying again against an archaic government, home of the oldest constitution in the world, imbued now with a million silver canisters––those systemic microcosms of problematic thought that remain impenetrable by their very nature of diminution and their slippery, silvery sheen that only in their full & relentless deployment can anyone catch hold of––the violence inherent in each little silver-plated nugget tossed ‘round damn near daily, imperceptible when it doesn’t affect every homestead yet incorrigibly present where it does. defund the schools, close the polling booths, gerrymander all the public housing in one serpentine district, tank the credit of those tenants so they can never escape, all the while bolstering some lucky fuck that beat the system just to say: “well, if they can do it, why can’t you?” so we’ll return to the screaming as it comes across the sky: “it has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now. it is too late.” and where Pynchon and Fanon meet is here, at the beginning and the end: a silver arch, a rainbow monochrome, as it inches us closer and closer to a total overthrow.

horse head nebula of seaweed and strife floatin' in the water, ain't it divine? it's alright now i'll go ahead admit i've had a little to drink stars are gettin' sloppy and i don't want to think but it's alright 'cuz oh nothin's gonna change the stars above are gonna stay the same everything's gonna stay the same no nothin's gonna change pillars of creation all drawn in the sand lips are movin' but i don't understand but it's alright gettin' intimate with a cold kitchen sink i'm spinnin' with the planets, i'm on the brink but it's alright 'cuz oh nothin's gonna change same old friends with the same old pains everyday feels a bit the same no nothin's gonna change no it ain't gonna change oh won't ever change 'cuz everyday i wake up and the sunlight feels the same and the alley out my window ain't no buffer against the rain on clearer nights i see the moon in its new ouroboros state it was full last you left me now it's circled back again but oh it don't ever change stars and moon still shine the same no won't ever change oh you sat next to me right to my left then you got the best of me and i hollered theft but you started talkin' around made sure everyone knows that i ain't gonna see ya again happened so quickly (well, not in retrospect) but i couldn't get my feet beneath and had no eyes for suspect but no holmes needed now you've told me quite straight that i ain't gonna see ya again sometimes i'm walkin' down the street you're on your porch and i'm right outside i'm stuck across the street and i wanna die this shakespearean shit's left me all bereft of any conclusion i could expect but you took my thinkin' turned my head to my toes and now i ain't gonna see ya again yeah that's all there is that i've come to know no more seein' you no more you comin' to shows so i'll stick to the cards and the old tarot cards and i ain't gonna see ya again no i ain't gonna see ya again (but when could i see ya again?) circled back again to the same old shit nothin' short of a comet's gonna break this orbit it's alright yeah we're holdin' on along the same old line me and my whiskey, we're doin' fine it's alright and oh nothin's gonna change the stars above gonna stay the same everyday feels a bit the same everything best stay the same let yourself have a moment or two you’ve got time but nothing to do get a new job, or go back to school yeah, the world’s on fire but what can you do? there will always be people who try to control you try to annul you, your intentions and your passions that’s just distractions and toxic trash refractions it’s endless but it’s better to focus and tell me how you feel now I’ve had my moment to stew ripped up my plans and drafted some new it’s hard sometimes to finish my art it’s all I can do to keep from falling apart these people relentless driven by directives never outright perspectives so we need a few detectives to keep it open hold back erosion but the words are easy to string together the backslide is real the sky's gone gray again said something wrong, gone're all of my friends but i'll move on, criss cross, head somewhere fair beacause there's nowhere to go but everywhere and the shadows howl to me while i roam alone "you don't have to stay, but you can't ever go home" but i'll be alright wherever i am and we'll all be pretty girls in the end but oh(oh[oh]) it won't ever change everything's gonna stay the same same old friends and the same old pains stars above are gonna stay the same no won't nothin' change

this is the last night she will sleep alone another message runs through her telephone morning dew won't wash pain away late night sins are here to stay in her mouth and in her eyes and in between her thighs is this how it feels to die she calls out for a god read but no reply she curls into herself at night slow and steady sigh the walls are closing in so she runs into a dream but there's nothing in her mind except for what she's seen so she crawls over to her god and holds him to her chest but before she falls into his world she writes her last address