EYES TO THE GROUND FOR CHANGE.
a.) With a bag of oranges and the open road I keep my eyes to the ground for change. We can all be free if that’s what we want to be, but it won’t always be that way. And it’s thrown away everywhere I see it too much. I’m just trying to make the courage to stop and pick it up. Some people feel just like home. Some towns feel like your enemies, out here again like a punch in the face. I'm a glutton for trying it all again, picking fights for the future with brand new friends, pointing out every old sin. Trying not to get knocked down again, and that was yesterday (there's nothing there) and tomorrow is just the future. No Big Deal!
b.) With a bag of oranges and the open road I keep my eyes to the ground for change. Wanting it all now instead of when it's supposed to happen. When will it happen? If you have to ask, then not right now. And that makes for a rough start but at least it's a start. Dear Friends: please don’t consider joy a weakness. We’re all survivors in some way. Either on a worn out road to get there or through some kind. of uniqueness. I'm trying to see the fear that I’ve learned as grace, or the few things I’ve gathered as common sense (anyways). Ignorance is trust and not the other way, and I’m on your side. Trying to make more of it, but what can that first note be?
c.) With a bag of oranges and the open road I keep my eyes to the ground for change. And I know it gets heavy to trust carrying all our former selves around inside of us. Always leaking out of brokenness, and not many staying filled any better than me. You don't know what you're gonna dream until you dream it. So share your life! It’s the only way to keep it! We don’t get to do what we’re supposed do because we give up too soon, but the end is not the goal. Even seeds have to be planted and die to grow. So I try and pick up change when I see it. I try and share it and not keep it. I try to not iron out the seams, and just let it be. But I’m brand new this morning, so we’ll see.
GOOD NEWS FIRST.
a.) Dear survivors and future survivors: I think we make our own kind of hell. If we’re gonna love someone, anyone, why not start with ourselves and see where that takes us. Losing makes you grow. Do you want to lose with me? Growing helps you win. Do want to lose with me? Oh the things your eyes have seen that I haven't seen, but I believe you. Do you believe me? And I mean you no harm, but may the best disasters come to you. We need each other a lot more than we don’t. My friends my family I can not keep you, you are your own, but I’ll fill my heart with you and weigh it down so I never go, or maybe take you with me so I’ll never really be alone. Out here on these stages of life in these temporary homes. Good news first. Good news first to numb the pain.
b.) Dear believers and future believers: We can't keep each other in prisons. If that's what we're serving, that's what we're deserving. Yes sometimes God never talks, but then sometimes we try not to listen. Losing makes you grow. Do you want to lose with me? Growing helps you win. Do want to lose with me? All the trees in the forest grow tall together, why can't we? We are moments passing by each other holding on, letting go, opening and closing again. Like you are the air I breathe, but weeks and worlds apart. Living in the future that we used to talk about. Good news first. Good news first to numb the pain.
c.) Dear achievers and future achievers: We will get all we can take. So take it and use it and through the abuses we’ll make our own kind of strength. Losing makes you grow. Do you want to lose with me? Growing helps you win. Do want to lose with me? And I’m open to being wrong, it’s all a guess. I’m more than anything I’ve lost (and yes!). I'm the farthest away from home (I think) but I'm closer to where I'm supposed to be. Closer to peace than I may ever be again ever. Well I’ve survived again most of this year, but It's hard to hold on with your fingers crossed. Good news first. Good news first to numb the pain.
d.) Dear survivors and future survivors: You are all amazing. You are important. Flawed and scarred on purpose. I love you all because you’re perfect, and with all the rest of me. Losing makes you grow. Do you want to lose with me? Growing helps you win. Who wants to lose with me? Good news first. Good news first to numb the pain. (and on my best days so I can take it)
NOT TODAY.
a.) What if the sun became a shooting star, and gave us one last wish to have, and you and I were all that's left, this is not a fear trap. Well I'm dying but not right now. I've been trying to take the life I've found, and make a fire out of all that's left, but I keep getting burned. I can see them all my faults, but you can only see where I begin to start. And I've been trying to show my work, but that's my least favorite part. Running my mind, making it up as it goes around. Don't hold it against me. You can hold me against it. Don't hold me down.
b.) If the sun turns to a shooting star, and leaves us with nothing much to say. This is not a fear trap, you can't pass a test you don't take. If you go looking you'll find it when it goes quiet behind your eyes. When the roof starts to bust, hell when I start to bust, with everything we need but time. And when the sun becomes a shooting star, and it goes from where we are don’t hold it against me. You can hold me against it. Don't hold me down.
TORNADOES.
a.) Ok. I feel like I’ve always had a tornado inside of me. You have it inside of you. Just sometimes it doesn’t move. I sort of bloom late, but I know it’s still there. It still twitches. I’m still flinching. I’m hiding in the basement. Trying to keep my head down. Trying not to get shocked. Trying to keep the windows boarded up. Trying to find the words that need a home too, and that home might be you. While that storm stays eating at the front door of my mind. Out here stranded between home and where I live. Waiting for the sun to peek in like a killer. Until I can know the coast is clearer. If it comes from the sky and it’s bad: It must be God. It must be mad. Like it changed its mind. Said never mind. So I told myself that if I quit moving I died. So I started it spinning and spinning around.
b.) But you were alive on that day in this town in this state, and you were younger and not as sure as you are now, but you were alive in every way. But we couldn't say that we'd ever find it again. So I put a mark on my heart for myself and all my friends. So we can find it again. Holding up your families. Holding up houses. Holding down jobs, and tears. I hope you never again have to use people and each other like washers (tightening the screws), but you were there for each other. Didn’t leave. Didn’t give up. And there’s a kind of unfortunate peace you have that no one can take away. And the pictures prove that you used to live so take more. And even if you don’t know what love is try and be all of it. And build an army, an army of peace. We are homeless in our houses. There are no guarantees. Even in our houses we are homeless. There are no guarantees.
I THINK IT'S CALLED SURVIVAL.
a.) So I'm gonna fall, and fall, and fall, And not hold on hold on, hold on. Let go! All we ever will become is what we give away, and give away, and give away. and give away. We are who we love, and what we do with what we’re given, and what we put in to the world is who we become. Time is a machine that makes us, and we leave and exit each other’s, and leave and exit life like blood pumping. It makes the heart grow. There's a kind of history we make smashing against each other. Our hands filled with each others hands filled with purpose, and I think it's called survival.
b.) Even if our scars don’t match there's no wrong you can't make better if you can figure out a way to change your mind. And sure there’s things I regret not doing or doing. Those thoughts climb my spine like spiders, and then I'm really the stranger in my own bed, and that ball of nervous gets pushed into every crack. That’s what’s holding the bricks together. But the answers aren't around us they are in us. And sure the bullets still in there, but I'm moving, and I think that's called survival.
c.) Well I want to pretend for a few more hours and a few more days until we forget what we're pretending for. What are we pretending for? We aren’t pretending anymore. Because we might not ever get to go back home again, and home might not exist the way we know it, or knew it to be, or maybe we'll be so different home won't be able to house us. Especially if we keep pulling all the feathers from our wings. But no matter how unraveled or what shape we take. We can always come home. Home inside of people and God. The way you lean is the way you fall. The way you lead is the way you follow.
EVERYTHING SLEEPS.
a.) We can’t change our world with more of the same of this (with words we’ve made up) it matters how we live. And even darkness has to sleep, or take its turn, in the sky. This is it? But everyone can see this, and that sounds like a dream I’d like to make one day, but sacrifices must be made. We are all bold and we all fade. Until there’s no soil left to sow. Watching dust float in the sunlight. Until there’s nothing left on the bone. Drawing maps in our breath on the window. It won't always be this way, and sometimes nothing works. But if we give everything we have every single time. We might get to live what’s next. This voice is barely a whisper. It is nothing. I am not this. You are everything.
b.) Wait! Listen, I will try and choke out some kind of mystery. We might not all get sleep, but we will all be changed, and then death won’t be able to count a victory. My friends my enemies our bodies are empty, but even being empty has potential. The space between my head and heart I try and fill it with simple, or innocence the shade behind our eyes. Our soul is at our teeth so speak through it. We can't keep what's not ours. It piles up and turns back to dirt. There’s work in making long lives, but what is that worth? When those who have nothing can see more clearly How can we see more that way? Instead of making laws for our own gain. When everything sleeps, how long will you? Everything sleeps, how long will you? Everything sleeps, how long will you? There are warning signs louder than words can say. Because sometimes words get in they way. Where there is nothing. There is God. God is everywhere.
THERE ARE WRECKING BALLS INSIDE US.
a.) It hasn't poured this much as long as I remember, but I've been forgetting a lot. Sometimes you get used to scraping bottom. There are wrecking balls moving in these rooms forgotten. Tearing it all down around me. Taking little stabs at growing. Cutting my arms to spears making dreams and not knowing, and never going to those places I make myself see. I just pull up the covers, and try to get sleep while the grass grows on the streets. I am all alone, and you are all alone. I am all alone, you are all alone. I am all alone, and you are all alone, but we are all alone together. Because it's ok to be scared sometimes, and brave sometimes, and fail some times sometimes, and it's not possible to lose every time. We have the time. We have the time. We have the time. What we build could be anything!
b.) There are wrecking balls inside our hearts inside our tongues and they are moving. They're swinging in our thoughts and fists, and they're smashing us together, but that's how we'll make it through. We'll use our hands and legs and guts and chains and turn the ground with shovels and dig up old roots. Unforgiven mistakes our parents made that maybe we’ll make too. Build a fire and hammer out everything that we've obeyed, and make a plow to dig us through. Covered in gasoline burning with purpose. I am not alone, and you are not alone. I am not alone, and you are not alone, and we are not alone together. Because it's ok to be scared sometimes, and brave sometimes, and fail some times sometimes. It's not possible to lose every time. We have the time. What we build could be anything! We can go places we've never even thought of.
c.) There will never be exactly perfect seas to set sail on. So sister the water is waiting, and brother we all might drown. But if we dive on out together, and not just wonder if we'll ever grow. We'll be free forever, and stop all this wandering around. Free inside our hearts and in jars in the basements of our minds, and give our lives away to keep each other alive. But we never will be finished, and I'm ok, are you ok? Ok, we'll swing our hearts around in our own ways. What I build could be anything! What you build could be anything! What we build could be anything, it could be anything anything! What I build could be anything! What you build could be anything! What we build together could be anything! We just have to build it.
IT WILL ALL HAPPEN THE WAY IT SHOULD.
a.) If you find yourself all alone or in prison. Whether behind bars or in your mind there is a plan. There is a plan, there’s a way out. It’s all happening the way it should. If you’re behind bars inside your mind there is a plan.
b.) If you feel yourself tied down or in danger. If it’s on the tracks or inside your heart all that will pass. All that will pass, there’s a way out. It’s all happening the way it should. If you’re tied down inside your heart all that will pass.
c.) If you push yourself to the edge and feel like jumping. If it’s 10 flights up or even more than that just hold on. Just hold on, there’s a way out, there is a plan, all that will pass. If you’re on the edge and feel like jumping, just hold on.
d.) If you’ve taken yourself underwater and you aren’t breathing, and you are drowning in your life, there’s something more. Just hold on, there’s a way out, it’s all happening the way it should. If you’re underwater and you aren’t breathing there’s more of that.
