Night Sands

 

EVERYWHERE,EVERYWHERE
—————————————
Everywhere, everywhere, batteries are dying
The sun is shining in a way I can’t trust
Everybody’s mourning the funeral parlor
Everybody’s taking home their cigarette butts

I know a place where the grass is brown
It’s lined with burrs and it smells like beer
I wanna see how it scratches your legs up
Let’s love the ugly things while they’re still here

Everyday, everyday I roll over and check out
whether you’ve been thinking of me in the night
If so, then I give you something more to think of
If not, then I give you something twice as nice

I know a place where the lights are blown
and you can get a glass by saying please
I wanna carve our names into the back wall
Let’s drink our fill before they lose their lease

Everywhere, everywhere, needles are tattooing
The temperatures are blueing but there’s no relief
Everybody’s scooping up the river water
Everybody’s growing trees in their backseats

I know a place where the grass is high
and the moonlight makes things look sincere
I can’t see how we’re gonna last but
I want to love you while you’re still here

DRUNK ROSES
—————————–
Drunk roses face down on the lawn
Drunk clouds being outshone by my phone
pull on yesterday’s bra and nobody’s sweater
I’m so tired of keeping it together

When we talk, I practice looking kind
I’m comparing our haircuts in my mind
I’m nobody’s mom and everyone’s other
working underground with myself as the cover

I want someone to crack me open
and pour me on the sidewalk
let me cook then scrape me up
and cover me in salt

I read a book on how there’s nothing with me
It had a lot of charts and graphs to convey authority
I didn’t finish and I left it in the rain
I guess I felt better even though nothing had changed

Blackberries choking out the track
Two sad friends I have to call back
Build your house on a rock, though in the face of the ocean
every rock is subject to erosion

I want someone to tie me up to
a comfortable chair
make me watch depressing films
and cry into a jar

ROGER MILLER BABY
———————-
I met your baby; he looks like Roger Miller
You nearly named him after a notable killer
I wonder which of five things he will grow up to be
Wide receiver or believer or the other three

Hey, you don’t have to tell me how it’s done
if you have two strong feelings you can only show one
Hey, crack a can of champagne
Raise a toast to the king of the road that you’re on.

I met a girl in a grad class on Willa Cather
I’d seen her on tinder but I pretended that I hadn’t
I already knew that things wouldn’t work out
but I enjoyed her opinions while I stared at her mouth

Hey, I don’t have to tell you how it’s done
Your college dog dies and you’re less interested in fun
Hey, crack a can of champagne
Pour one out for the person you were, you were once.

I met myself on a yellow summer night
I said, if you’ve got a second, well I’ve got some advice
You won’t get what you want in the order you want it
I said ok but I don’t even know what I want yet

Hey, who can even tell you how it’s done
Which is the real? which is the reflection?
Hey, crack a can of champagne
Leave your shoes in the yard and turn off the sun.

EX PARTY
—————–
You said, my friend’s having a party, and the friend was your ex
I’d had a lot of practice hanging with girls with whom you used to have sex
And she was cool, she was so cool, she was so cool
She was from Alaska and she played drums and had good tattoos

And we hung out in the backyard around a plastic table
You had one arm around the back of my chair
The sun stretched out above us as wide as it was able
and half of every smile you saved for me

And I was so in love with you, so in love with you, so in love with you
And so aware that it could fall away at any minute
I knew if I was ever gonna write you a love song I’d better do it quick
I’m sorry I wasn’t good at it then, I’m sorry I wasn’t good at it.

So we were at this party, and you were talking to your ex
I’d had a lot of practice playing your perfect loving object
‘Cause I was cool, I was so cool, I was so cool
I would let you place me wherever you wanted to

And the jagoffs in the next yard were lighting firecrackers
And I started to imagine a parade
of all your former girlfriends, led off by Miss Alaska
while I watched and begged for candy from the shade

and I was so in love with you, so in love with you, so in love with you
and so aware that it could fall away at any minute
I knew that you could love me, but not if it would stick
Are you sorry you weren’t good at it then? Are you sorry you weren’t good at it?

ELDERLY LESBIANS
————-
Here’s a thing that isn’t true but it feels like it is:
I’ve been alone since I was born
I googled “Elderly lesbians” to cheer myself up
but the results were all pornography

Duos on the television
sparring with recycled words
Children building wooden houses
before they’ve ever met a bird

well I’m still not sure exactly what it means
to be living in exile from old dreams

Once, I had an idea
and I could not be repaired
if I could find a word to describe myself entire
then I would know what to wear

Standing at the arch of the gate
spitting fruit into the trash
Double falls and following trains
and bent pennies in the grass

well I’m still not sure exactly what it means
to be living in exile from old dreams

I can’t see
past the rims
of my glasses
in the night sands

I can’t see
past the rims
of my glasses

BALLET COPS AT THE COP BALLET
—————-

TAKE THE SUMMER OFF
—————————
I took a break from the future for the summer
I felt the wind through the hair on my legs
I remembered that I had friends and
forgot about those Sues and Debs

We luxuriated in the unproductive
or produced things with no external worth
One kind of love is to wander
through your personal, orthogonal Earth

While people were arguing with their dads
we slept on the roof wrapped in starless flags
It can be a good time to be outside of time
It can be a good time to be outside of time

I took a break for the summer from the future
We ate ravioli over the sink
I got a skateboard and a skinned elbow
and a thrill from being bad at things

While couples compared seven shades of black
we walked our friends’ dogs and then gave them back
It can be a good time to be outside of time
It can be a good time to be outside of time

ONLY GAY PERSON
—————————————-
I’m wearing a dress somewhat under duress
‘cause it’s easier, and sometimes I want it to be easy
And the guests are all incandescently happy
on a day that barely required imagining

I’m the only gay person in this room
I’m the only gay person in this room
I’m the only gay person in this room
I’m the only gay person in this room

If there is a God and He has a plan
it’s to make me so bored I’ll have sex with a man
well You ain’t got me yet Lord, You ain’t got me yet
You shouldn’t have let us create the internet

I’m the only gay person in this room
I’m the only gay person in this room
I’m the only gay person in this room
I’m the only gay person in this room

I’VE BEEN A RIVER
—————
When we were the ocean, we were right next to each other
Rubbing next to each other, being wet
You were one thing, I was another
And among our kind we made a larger thing yet

I’ve been a river, I’ve been a river
I’ve been a river for so long

When we were vapor, we were right next to each other
Grasping onto each other, being high
And then I fell. I assume you fell later
but I couldn’t pick you out among the sky

I’ve been a river, I’ve been a river
I’ve been a river for so long

Are you soaking into a ground?
What does the dirt taste like if you have time to taste it?
Are you slipping onto a town?
What does time feel like if you’ve a mind to waste it?

I’ve been a river, I’ve been a river
I’ve been a river for so long
I’ve been a river, I’ve been a river
I’ve been a river for so long
I’ve been a river, I’ve been a river
and I don’t know if I will be the sea

I’LL DECIDE TO HAVE A PROBLEM
————
One way to react, when you’ve been abandoned
is to take yourself and put a dam in
And over time, become an expert in engineering
Managing the flow and leakage of your feelings

There’s folks out there who claim there’s a deficience
In practicing an extreme self sufficience
But even once you prove that you can do it all yourself
It’s sometimes hard to let in someone else

Well I’ve still got problems, they haven’t gone away
but you make me feel like I could be soft and it could be okay
And I can’t say when, but someday soon
I’ll decide to have a problem in front of you

Down in the park, there is a fountain
where a younger me practiced my accounting
I held my pen so tight that it was hard to see
my assets were my liabilities

Well I’ve still got problems, they haven’t gone away
but you make me feel like I could be soft and it could be okay
And I can’t say when, but someday soon
I’ll decide to have a problem in front of you