1. |
Small Sleep
02:21
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"Grief, fear, sadness...a lot of fear."
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2. |
Quickening
04:04
|
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In your car, parked
cold air
flows through
your mouth:
the dream of a friend’s
hand on your head growing cold.
Death Thought surrounds me:
not death untimely,
a wasted life,
the bad person
quickening inside of me.
“We taste anxiety.”
So rain burn through my throat,
bring Small Sleep,
on you she floats.
Withholding she holds me.
“I’ll be where you’ve lost yourself.”
“In your emptiness I swell up.”
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3. |
(Body)
00:29
|
|||
"He came up and said:
“something’s wrong, something’s went wrong, Kyle’s not responding he’s not responding.”
Then I came down there and you were just like staring straight ahead…
So I just grabbed you, threw you in my car. I worked at the hospital so I knew all the codes to get in. I pulled up, I drove you there, and as we were driving there in the rearview I could see that your--your little body--you were starting to look up and to the right..."
|
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4. |
Rain Leak
04:58
|
|||
One way that you can calm the fear:
say what you want to hear.
“It’s raining again.”
Drunk by my friend’s side,
we watched my father open wide.
“A branch that cracks in the wind.”
Oh let it be known
that I’m afraid.
Oh let it be shown:
Death Thought eats my days.
White Noise across my chest,
under my eyelids, there’s no rest.
“Small sleep is too weak.”
And I can “still feel the sting in my hand
from when I hit” him:
“A pipe that springs a leak.”
Oh let it be known
that I’m ashamed.
Oh let it be done:
Death Thought eat away.
Dream kills Death,
Death kills Sleep,
Sleep kills Death,
Death kills Dream.
Dream kills Death,
Death kills Sleep,
Sleep is Death,
Death is Dream.
Oh let it be known
that I’m afraid.
Oh let it be shown:
Death Thought eats my days.
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||||
5. |
Klonopin
03:47
|
|||
The snow outside,
the pill I take to hide from life:
the way it blankets my mind,
it’s hard to describe
With slowing heartbeat,
the way it erases what’s beneath,
the way it thaws slowly,
revealing
Muddy human shape imprinted: shame.
Musty leaves and sadness,
blame
my self-imposed detachment:
internal passion, eternal absence.
With slowing heartbeat,
erasing the self beneath.
When it thaws slowly
is that me?
I look down wistfully,
stumble around aimlessly,
nothings found in daylight,
it dims, I cover myself.
“Again, alive.”
“It snows every night.”
|
||||
6. |
(Bedroom)
00:50
|
|||
"...friendships, my family, um...Try to not let my mind ruminate too much. At one point in my life my mind was ruminating too much and I had to get on some…
...neighborhood street. Then I came over and I asked your dad “where’s Kyle” and he said upstairs. So I went upstairs and you were standing naked in your bedroom with a knife in your hand. At first I didn’t see the knife ‘cause your back was to me."
|
||||
7. |
Death Thought
04:32
|
|||
8. |
Two Faces
05:46
|
|||
Cold side of the pillow,
marking on my cheek:
loyal in my cold life
so sadness doesn’t seep out
I go to drink
to warm my soul or whatever’s inside: frightened animal.
When I’m cold I’m closed:
someone broke my nose at night,
blood ran through the valleys of my face.
Looking through the mirror
I couldn’t feel a thing:
outside
without meaning.
The pillow’s warming now,
most flip it around.
I want to feel the heat
pass right through my cheek;
flow to ocean dark and swirling
to thaw a self emerging.
Face warm and yearning,
sun and meaning filling everything
and me
with love for everyone:
when I hurt others
I drink spilling meaning so I can sleep.
“Two faces have been shown
in your reductive songs
you want simplicity.
Bipolar binary.
Inside more selves are swimming,
surfacing, it’s never ending.”
I sat watching the leaves
blow in the autumn breeze
thinking of that baby we almost had.
A self created me.
I drink for times when life’s beneath is shown
burbling up, bursting the self I’ve known.
|
||||
9. |
Put Me to Sleep
03:22
|
|||
You woke me up,
placed me in
small ribs
firm and strong.
Breathing in your breathy voice,
I grew, we were bound.
“Awake and alive
caught inside
your airy sound,
I don’t want to get out.”
Run fingers through
short black hair.
Put me to sleep.
Death Thought
far away,
no one else does that to me.
“Young and warm,
your arms,
they wrap around,
I don’t want to get out.”
“It's in the shape of your body around me.”
It's in the way that your dog crawls in between.
“The time we played guitar,
Rose City park,
we’re in it deep, it’s not a dream.”
|
||||
10. |
Knowing
05:00
|
|||
You’ll never know me without a seizure at age four:
absent eyes, ambulance ride, life: a closing door.
No, it doesn't work like that:
we don’t lose ourselves in other people’s worlds.
“We” is always “me” and you’ll never know.
Sterile smell, fever state, the spirit’s sprawl across the floor.
Brain that’s dyed, breakout of hives, grief for their first born.
No, it doesn't work like that:
experiences press heavy against life.
I know that “we” is always “me” and you’ll never know.
“Go toward the enormous absence of form that is sleep.”
No, we don't grow closer:
weighed down, honest face from others we all hide.
I know, “we” is always “me” and I’ll never know.
You’ll never know me if you haven't known the sound
of paramedics in the house, carrying your father down:
his slurry speech, his fearful eyes, half his face a drooping frown,
your fearful heart and your relief to find he’s still around.
“Go toward the enormous absence of form that is sleep”
You’ll never know me if you haven't tasted tears
over mother’s youngest sister and your best friend, it’s so clear:
at all times, in every moment, death blows in the air
she cries in soup, I lie awake knowing someday we’ll be there.
|
||||
11. |
(Person)
00:38
|
|||
"...and the meaning of everything, you were seeing meaning in everything. And then you just kept staying awake and staying awake and staying awake and finally we went up to your bedroom--and you weren’t yourself you know? It was like a terrifying feeling as a mother like you don’t know this person, terrifying. And we went upstairs and finally your dad said…
My mind was very powerful, I was like looking down, I was floating up looking down. And I actually felt very spiritually very strong."
|
||||
12. |
Shower
08:47
|
|||
Two faces lit by candlelight
speaking over food and drink,
and drink, and drink, and drink’s insight.
I’m the self I want to be,
a city that’s not home,
no other squirming around in me.
Feel myself open up wide,
beautiful, you sit across.
Out spills that story: I’m broken
In
tale of loss of self I hide. (“You’ve been here before.”)
Getting drunker, edges blur,
look up, black sky:
“You are one mind creating night.
Across from you is everyone,
and of course you are going to die,
and this will fade, but that’s alright.
There’s no light but you will see:---”
---Smell of salt in air, of sea,
wakes me from my solipsistic, narcissistic reverie.
Clinging to things I can't express,
I suggest we leave.
As they fade we walk up the street.
We take a shower to cool off,
warm steam of bodies rises up.
Away it floats, a person cloud
right through the window.
The smell of soap and hair
rising above the city,
meshing with the dark air:
all the other human clouds, unanswered prayers.
“Alive in your memory, living in the air
when you die is it still there?”
|
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