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1. |
Rahotep
03:51
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I’m afraid of myself —
I think that everyone else is just a distraction
From who I might be
If I really tried
I’m a caramel
A-melting on a windowsill
A mess for you to chip off
When I dry
There are ants all over my bathroom wall.
They worship me!
On my throne!
I’m so proud.
There’s a dried up well
Somewhere out in my personal hell,
I filled it with smoke and piss
Just to pass the time
And when it was filled,
I packaged it up in little pills
And sold it on the street
With my couplet rhymes
Please
Be strong for me
I can only pretend at strength
Please be kind to me
Show me how
Let me go to sleep
And feel the earth slip from under my feet
As I shed the burden of self
And finally breathe
And somewhere deep
In the deepest end of my bedpan sea
I found a blue-tipped match
To light my teeth
There are ants all over my bathroom wall.
They worship me!
On my throne!
I’m so proud.
There’s a boy in town
Wandering around all naked and brown
Scratching symbols on signposts
For his little friends
I say hey little jerk
Why don’t you
Get back to your mama so i can get back to work
He says “piss off old prick,
Do you even know who i am?
I am Rahotep
I am the winter warden on your back deck
TGIF, let’s BBQ
My man”
Please
Be strong for me
I can only pretend at strength
Please be kind to me
Show me how
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2. |
Taps
05:31
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Honey, put your glasses on.
I need your help
finding something
I think I’ve misplaced
Maybe grab a jacket too,
Thick enough to warm you to the
bone,
In the cold spots on the way
As for me, my cigarettes,
In case I get tired
And need some smoke to
Free up the air.
I am temporary
I wash off
Anyway we gotta go
Come on pack up your shit let’s go
We’re headed out of town
Red and blue and old hair gray —
Our pasty skin,
Gently juxtaposed
Against the dawn
The suffocating snow, it falls as
Gifts without sound,
Secrets to swallow up
The lawn.
I am unimportant
I am second-rate
Now we’re off, here’s country roads,
An old, cozy song.
I apologize in advance
In a silver splash, Winter’s with us,
Hiking up her skirt,
The coins flash from my pocket
To her hands.
“There it is,” she says,
“Just look up, not at the dirt.”
Embarrassed, I notice
I’m not wearing pants.
Is this just how things happen?
Not at all, then all at once?
Plots are overrated but
We feel deep in love
The first time i saw you strung out
I thought it then, i think it now
You are my favorite.
My tiny baby bean,
My ugly sprout.
So here we are, and I am Death,
And you a lonesome target,
Let’s head on back.
It won’t be found.
Someday we’ll find my good name.
Where did it go?
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3. |
Selective Memory
05:28
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I sent some connectivity into the id
And what I found there was the worst
Oh it makes me hurt
It makes no sense
No sense at all
I went downstairs to see if the cat was alive
And I found her sittin down
By her broken water fountain
She looked surprised
Thirsty, but wise
I bent my back near'n half makin you so small
What's there left of you to break?
Won't you go back,
Go back home alone,
So I can sleep
I once met the mayor at the annual county fair
He was fatter in real life
I felt betrayed
As I made awkward eye contact
With his wife
Ain't it the same thing over and over?
Ain't it the same thing over and over?
Ain't it the same thing over and over again?
I miss those days in the mountains after school
Where no one could hunt us down
That was our mountain
Little kings and queens
With green and golden crowns
I think about the way we used to live our lives
How the midnight wine would stain
Are we real now like then?
Am I alive now like then?
Are we more we than them?
I can't go back to a life without your love
And I know that sounds cliché
But I don't give a shit.
You are the sum of my life,
the sum of all my pain
I don't where we go, but we go from here:
From the space that I have made.
This broken peace,
This wasted air passin between
You and Me.
Ain't it the same thing over and over?
Ain't it the same thing over and over?
Ain't it the same thing over and over again?
Ain't it the same thing over and over?
Ain't it the same thing over and over?
Ain't it the same thing over and over again?
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4. |
Telegraph
06:16
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The dewy trap of your sweat-kissed shoulders
Your panty line
At odds with the smell of the latrine around the corner
With your drunk breath
Life is good and knowable
The gentle moles that define your scapulae
Freckles, more fine
Your jagged teeth, one broken by a bottle
Your lips taste like death
Life is good and knowable
Life is soft but sustained
Life is good and knowable
Life is strange but serene
You’d never know half of one eyebrow’s missing
The rest is painted on
You’re a master of juxtaposition
The here, and the gone
Some people go their whole lives through
Not knowin anyone like you
Not knowin all the things we do
Like life is good and life is long and
Nothin that matters lasts
Like pain is strength divided by time
And everything else will pass
Everything else will pass
You and I will pass
Kiss me like you mean it, kiss me like you want to,
Kiss me time after time
Squeeze me til it hurts, squeeze me til i’m cryin’
Til i gasp for air
Life is good and knowable
Beat me up on Sunday, patch me up on Monday,
By Tuesday we’ll be fine
Friday is for jerks, the weekend’s for losers
Look at us, what a pair
Life is good and knowable
Life is soft but sustained
Life is good and knowable
Life is strange but serene
The dewy trap of your sweat-kissed shoulders
The scars on your thighs
I am so in love with you
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5. |
Baby
03:47
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Baby bottle contents down the drain
Mommy makes a map out of three collapsed veins
That says “baby boy grow up strong
Stronger than me, please”
Rockabye my baby you’re the best
Mommy crushes adderall and studies for her test
“Baby boy grow up smart
Smarter than me, please”
Baby bottle contents on the floor
Mommy spills the formula and stumbles towards the door
“Baby boy grow up sweet
Sweeter than me, please”
Rockabye my baby you’re the bomb
Mommy crushes atoms with her fingers down her gob
“Baby boy grow up safe
Safer if i go now
Safer if i bleed out
Safer if i go now
“Rockabye my baby you’re a ball
Hope you like the animals i’ve drawn on the walls
Baby boy grow up soft
Softer than me, please"
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6. |
Green & Gold
05:14
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Maybe i’ll sleep forever
In a soft, pale white,
Once all my slights
Are forgotten
And you’ll go, all together,
To my shade in the meadow,
Where green is my willow,
And golden the sun
Offer one pint of bitter,
And two small sheaves of Burley,
But come you not too early
In the mornin
And i’ll darken the heather,
Terrible and wise,
Kneel and take your prize:
This communion.
Pain is wise
Blood our greatest teacher,
Scars remain
To protect us from our past.
Beckon me, up from the ground
If you forget what we all found here
Together
Golden leaves now are scattered,
For me, the Wildflower King,
A green but blistered thing,
Blissless yet beautiful
In a voice like children’s laughter
Mixed with burning trees,
Crackling bark and pleas
From the faithful.
“You must climb Jacob’s Ladder,
Rung by sanguine rung,
A song strongly sung,
Not faint nor fitful.
Will any of it matter?”
My grating awful whisper
Scrapes your insides deeper
Than is possible.
Green and gold in the heather,
Green and gold in your eyes,
Here he lies,
Your lover.
Pain is wise
Blood our greatest teacher,
Scars remain
To protect us from our past.
Beckon me, up from the ground
If you forget what we all found here
Together
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7. |
Sisters
04:40
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1 hey look, there’s something stuck in her mouth.
2 pry it out, let’s see what it is.
3 hey, would you look at that?
4 a picture from when we were kids.
5 i remember that day -
6 it was hot as shit.
7 our hands and tongues blazed like fire,
8 we cooked on each other’s skin.
My sister.
1 i’d like to touch her hair one last time,
2 feel the curls give way to my
3 greedy fingers. she loved my voice,
4 my long tail and the way i looked at the sky.
5 i remember that day -
6 look at her dress. what a dime.
7 what a sandbox prophet.
8 what a lover she’d become.
My sister.
1 look. at 22 years of age,
2 she married a man that looked just like that. (like me.)
3 except he was more cruel and more stupid
4 and the fat hung off him like it hurt.
5 i never forgave her. i burned my tongue
6 on her breasts. and i never forgave her
7 for leaving me crippled and small.
8 and yellow.
My sister,
Her insides are out,
Bloodmoon.
1 chaos. she loved chaos. she loved that
2 her present was not necessarily her future.
3 she loved that this black world could spin and boil
4 and collapse and none of it would matter.
5 she loved my long tail,
6 my green eye, my bitter taste.
7 she loved the scars she gave me,
8 like i loved scraping them open.
My sister,
Her insides are out,
Bloodmoon.
Her glowing tongue,
My sister.
My doom.
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8. |
Houseplant
03:04
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I think when they put you back together
They stapled it on wrong
Hangin off like it never even belonged
But it’s ok
I still love you
It’s ok
I’ll still love you
Bodybag baby you got horse glue heroin
Drippin from all your pores
Screamin out your body like you never even tried it before
It’s ok
I still love you
It’s ok
I’ll still love you
The marble fades and the statue grows,
You just need a little maybelline
No matter how much falls, you still got all i need
So it’s ok
I still love you
It’s ok
I’ll still love you when you’re gone
It’s ok
I still love you, more than ever
It’s ok
I’ll still love you now and forever
It don’t matter if your hair if your hair falls out in bunches
It don’t matter if your taste for flesh overwhelms you
It don’t matter if your collar breaks, and you escape the shed
You’re already dead
It’s ok
I still love you
It’s ok
I’ll still love you
It’s ok
I still love you
It’s ok
I’ll still love you
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9. |
The Stuff
03:53
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There's nothin wrong with me
Why are you starin at me?
There's nothin wrong with me
Why are you starin at me?
Break this bottle over my head
So I can sleep
Break this bottle over my head
Let me go
I'm not the one who's cryin
You're cryin
I'm not the one who's cryin
You're cryin
Why don't you
Break this bottle on the back of my head
And kiss me once goodbye
Break this bottle on the back of my head
Send me out to sea
I'm beggin, baby
Fuck off quickly and
Fuck off long enough for me to heal
I think he's had enough
His soul's all red
I think he's had enough
His soul's all red
Like somebody broke a bottle over his head
For somethin dumb he did
Somebody broke a bottle over his head
Thank god
There's nothin wrong with me
Stop starin at me
There's nothin wrong with me
Stop starin at me
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Zachariah Baker & His Guitar Orchestra Laramie, Wyoming
weirdness / kindness
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