this is not a spectacle for the stage it belongs in every hull in the room it should be as a viking funeral it should be as fire on the waves splintered neck and shattered head ripple concrete waters cigarettes shot from broken strings turn you into a pyre a basement fire smoke so thick you could slam dance stumble up it struggle to keep your footing on the ground all soaked in beer and sweat twenty something teen angst even straight edge kids will crack a smile this is blood blister beautiful this is sinking ship release this is ramshackle freedom this is how we find peace this is blood blister beautiful this is sinking ship release this is ramshackle freedom this is how we find peace

y'all sometimes more than anything i wish i could be like strings tuned tightened taught eight of them like a mandolin hanging in the wind chimes that way i could slip my song through the chip in their window when they need to hear it most you see his closed front gate was a gate way drug now now his drug of choice is locked doors most mornings he wakes up and squeezes a tube of neosporin into each ear just so he can hear what healing sounds like he says it drowns out the judgement says it takes the edge off the hit of the word faggot last night he said it felt like the stars were only falling to smash our windshields in meanwhile across town she she falls into bed feeling like a drum head all stretched out and beaten on amazed she didn't break this time after being speed bag bounced simply because she was there and dry and worried and said something when she saw all those empty bottles and bloodshot wake up on the living room couch y'all their lips their lips will taste of knuckle spit and this is it this is when i wish wish i could sing like strings wish i could be there for him or for her for anyone else who's ever felt the back of a belt for being different all the other kids out there with way more balls than me that live with their closet doors kicked down letting cork screw skeletons proudly parade out or all the other ones who only know the four walls of a home in pictures of furniture arrangements in ikea junk mail catalogues i want to eight string sing to them i want to hold their body to mine kiss the brilo out their throat swallow all their salt and tell them they can still harmonize tell them there's no such thing as hopeless there's this feeling called loneliness but there is never such a thing as being alone so do not write yourself off and not on a mirror i don't care how pretty your lipstick penmanship is suicide cursive still looks ugly on your reflection and if you've written that note i dare you to redraft it redraft it til it reads spite redraft it til it reads smiling redraft it til it reads living redraft it til it reads living redraft it til it reads living and living and living well is the best revenge on those hard times that we loyally blister grip so in the name of the sharpened broken spokes and three a.m. hammereds that chiseled me safety pin stitch welded me to all the love the rage the stubbornness the hip hop that swath swagger splinted me to the same punk drunk love punched juke box tunes over and over and over that remind me to rock i will spit sparks to shock take stock with my pen loaded and my paper cocked and give you everything i got i will bleed you everything i got it aint much it's just a couple of words some old wounds i will open them i will press my secrets to yours i will bleed you this pour you poetry it's donated blood i hope it helps you heal i hope it helps her laugh even a little and leave i hope it helps him sleep bedroom unlocked door open so i can sing to him these eight string lullabies y'all more than anything i wish this

with your head resting on my chest you once told me in your own skin you felt out of place like lipstick on a vulture or something i guess you never had much trouble standing out but see you set your life's tempo with a sawzall you cut through butter like convention so i can't help but wonder if your back to sniffing around to get high enough to climb out of those bottles that you fell into falling landing bowlegged straddling the saddle of the first horse through the gate god damnit is it fucked up that i still care about you that i still worry sometimes that i still got a mouthful of cherry bombs and black cat brand burning snakes scorching a smiley face into the sidewalk see i'm smiling y'all but it still smells like sulfur every time i walk the plank into conversation with you but see you you were laughing up ozone the other night from all that lightning in your second hand smoke clouds that's why i left the party without saying goodbye i'm not the biggest fan of getting cornered at a house warming and drinking more than i meant to 'cause my hands needed something to do while the rest of me couldn't run that's what it's come to this is how it is now that's what it's come to so if you still haven't gotten it by now you smiling sneering lady you lovely m-80 if i held you tight for too long i'd have blown off a couple of fingers i had to let go i'm sorry you lit your own fuse i couldn't put it out for you i'm sorry all i can do now is wait and watch for you to detonate i'm sorry i hope you don't ground's got enough craters and burns and caskets full of good looking young bodies to go around and i know you think that one more won't make a difference but it will didn't you see the way that i shook like a boxcar when you were screaming like a train yard that you were gonna lay down on the tracks i don't think you get it i don't think you get that i still got your touch scratching under my skin like fiberglass i don't think you ever noticed the handcuff around my throat and it was cuffed to you and it took me a while to get the nerve to chew right through the bone leaving a limb a piece of me behind but i've taken way more than twelve steps in the right direction hoping you would notice the tugging at your wrist telling you that i can't take the taste of your tears over the phone at four a.m. anymore the tugging telling you to take one step and stop punishing yourself stop trying to fly from this body gripping the bottle rocket you're burning this body you're burning this skin this skin was made for you it's a perfect fit if you just let it let it hold you the way i saw you hold you the way i held you like i wasn't going anywhere

to the nights i stood ready to open mouth kiss porcupines i played pin cushion so well there were couch cushions stuffed full of cigarette cherries and headlines waiting for us to fall asleep to burn the whole goddamn body down to the nights flirting with the inevitable and fucking the moment instead steering wheel tears tempered glass tantrum and the open arms of light poles to the nights i wanted to die you don't own me you don't own me in 2005 the ska punk band the arrogant sons of bitches disassembled when members of the band followed the need to get real jobs all of them but front man jeff jeff rosenstock instead continued to make music and instead ended up living in his parent's basement it was cold it was damp it was dark but we are nothing if not reactions against our own environment you don't own me you don't own me jeff jeff i'm baseball bat to barstool and brick wall boxing again my hands are bleeding again and beating again beat beat beating again i'm left shuffling through splinters and not eating again jeff it's hard to see how you handled it how you handled all the heart scrape the hops the hot box and i can't stop this shuttering and bone bruising i just want to sleep jeff i just want to stop crying asshole in the mirror jeff i just want to dream dream that my blood hasn't dreamt of running to the waters and leaving me like this swirling and drained the thing that no one ever tells you about depression is it has nothing to do with being sad it's feeling hollow thin empty egg shell with rice paper walls y'all i don't know how to slow down most nights but i know i could get so much reading done if i got laid up in the icu you don't own me you don't own me jeff jeff you overloaded your outlets you frayed your chords let sparks fly to light up this basement you used your busted ass laptop as kindling because you needed this jeff but now i need this we all need this sometimes so let us swing guitar and duct tape into the dampness we will punch our shadows in their dark parts we'll take every shitty high school metaphor about razor blades and wrists stuff them into and amplifier and let them rattle and use them to carve the grooves into this here vinyl seven inch there all the heart scrape all the problems climbing every towering inferno deep burn in love every self inflicted car wreck the well intentioned pile up the break up the break in the five years of writing gone job terminated direction spinning skeletons scribbling skeletons scribbling ink to paper they put ink on this paper my problems are ink on this paper my problems don't look so big on this eight and half by eleven inch piece of paper here in the grooves of this vinyl seven inch carved with a gut wrench and a muscle still clenched the size of your fist they sound just like this and if i wasn't a fat kid in high school i would have never listened to punk rock and if i knew how to throw a football i would have never played any music and if i never got my heart broken i would sing blah blah fucking nothing i would sing nothing and i'm grateful to sing i'm grateful that every single day every single one of us every single time that we breathe we are singing an anthem of survival sound track of going down swinging thank you for this thank you for the sure footing thank you

uh one ah two uh one six shit well this world's spinning out of control yeah we're stuck in a permanent barrel roll yeah man we're crashing and we're burning but with each other we still got one thing if we woke up tomorrow morning and the earth crashed into the sun as long as i'm with you i'll feel like the lucky one and as the nuclear missiles fly we can bake one last pie and not care that we're all gonna die 'cause the world is going to shit there aint no doubt about it and when we get there i wanna get there with you well we've all seen it on the news this place has gone down the tubes and i know that we all gotta go some day but with each other we can have it our own way if we woke up tomorrow morning and the polar ice caps melt if you just hold my hand no fear will be felt and if orwell's dreams come true and i know that our freewill's screwed i wanna spend my last ounce of freedom with you why 'cause the world is going to shit there aint no doubt it and when we get there i wanna get there with you 'cause the world is going to shit there aint no doubt about it and when we get there i wanna get there with you 'cause the world is going to shit there aint no doubt about it and when we get there i wanna get there with you

thank you for the sun thank you for the blinds thank you for the crack in the blinds thank you for these eyes thank you for the morning in these eyes for waking up for yawns stretches creaks and cracks for first breaths thank you for firsts thank you for firsts that disguise themselves so well as beginnings after an end thank you for the ends and what's left but rebar thank you for what's behind me thank you for what's in front of me thank you for jeans for boots for miles and miles and tires and miles and smiles thank you for teeth these tuning forks for forgiveness thank you for ears for forgetting the shape of tone deaf in my mouth and sound of skin on my tongue thank you for my tongue for voice for taste thank you for food thank you for sharing thank you for friends for family for hands thank you for work and worry and cops and suits and force and ravishment and broken trust and the bastards who made me what i am the fans for my flames the sides for my thorns thank you for weary for better days for a home for pride in action and sweat for smoothed knots cradled crepitus and holding on thank you for pillows for sheets and comforters and their palms for the crack in the blinds for the blinds for night for night for sleep for the time until the sun thank you for not doing it when i could have when i wanted to when it filled the windshield i still can i still hear it sometimes but thank you for not and instead turning around and thanking the sun thank you for the sun thank you for the sun thank you