I said, “Elizabeth, I know You can’t wait to get out of here But I bet you’ll look back when you’re leaving” We were the lone lights on the road Drifting over county lines A bottle at our feet She said, “I know this place too well To lose myself And I just wanna lose myself again” And “we could die tonight But there’s thousands yet ahead and I... I can’t spend ‘em here” And I said, “If you end up wrecking all alone So far from your name you can’t be found And stranded like a cross on a gravel road Who’d be the one to bring you flowers? Who’d be the one to bring you flowers?” I said, “Elizabeth, there is a grace In dying in the very place You were born” In the dashboard glow I swore I saw her eyes roll Or stow away a tear I said, “I know you way too well You’ll never really lose yourself I bet we never get to lose ourselves again” She said “Your love is setting slow Like concrete around my bones I can’t end up here” But if she ends up wrecking when she goes So far from the home where she was bound Stuck, standing like a cross on a gravel road I will be the one to bring her flowers I will be the one to bring her flowers I will be the one to bring her flowers

your sleeveless heart it starts its fire for the night kindles its conviction with some lines from books you’ve barely put a crease in you’re in the dark and all lit up on your father’s gin you nihilist, you feel no consequence of needing nothing to believe in born again… again you got a soul to sell you’re so certain when it comes from someone else yes, and you’ll defend every single part screaming like you mean it from your sleeveless heart you sleep past noon and wake with smoke still in your head the embers cool those revelations left you cold again you’re so desperate to believe in yourself or anything—anything at all but now they sound so hollow like in an empty cathedral hall the echoes of your own voice screaming born again… again got no soul to sell when your sermon ends you’re orphaned to yourself nothing to defend nothing to impart nothing but the heat of a sleeveless heart

All the trees flail their skeleton hands Warning us to double back But we trudge through the boot prints Strangers cut through this And make it out in someone else’s tracks Gentler weather held you together But this rough stretch rends your seams The sidewalks go jagged And the highways fracture It’s hard to stay and harder still to leave Cold creeps in the cracks The delicate can’t last And the ice is gonna try to break us The ice is gonna try to break us up Yeah, the ice is gonna try to break us The ice is gonna try to break us up Seven months ago, you were invincible And your misery took so little strength to conceal But the winds found the weakness At your collar and sleeves In the promises you’re keeping In your vow not to leave So as you shatter to pieces Fall into me I could hold you all together till you heal Cold creeps in the cracks And it widens them and weakens everything And the ice is gonna try to break us The ice is gonna try to break us up Yeah, the ice is gonna try to break us The ice is gonna try to break us up The ice is gonna try to break us (Everybody falls apart here) The ice is gonna try to break us up (Everything just falls apart here) Yeah, the ice is gonna try to break us (I was gonna try to heal ya) The ice is gonna try to break us up (I was gonna try to heal ya)

The ninth drink delivers The lines you've prewritten And a voice like yours admits no wrong I swirl the ice inside my glass Drowning out the very last words I should say I guess that Everybody’s got a trusty lie they tell We fool ourselves with our own sleight of hand Everybody’s got a trusty lie they tell to themselves Keep it in your head Careful now, don’t let it wriggle out One sincere sentence And six years is ended Instead my voice sounds strange when I speak to you How’d we wind up here? Why do I stay? Repeat it one last time: "It's just for one more day” ‘Cuz everybody’s got a trusty lie they tell We fool ourselves with our own sleight of hand Everybody’s got a trusty lie they keep to themselves It sounds right your head Careful now… Oh! If I met you here tonight For the first time I’d run the other way Oh! That’s a good one! Everybody’s got a trusty lie they tell to themselves It’s safe inside your head So careful now… Careful now… Careful now… Don’t let it… Wriggle out

Do those sirens always blow? Or did this time bomb finally explode? They want you all in cities now Herded on the coasts The center cannot hold And you’ll be armed with nothing but Your conscience when it goes If you make it out You can stay with me ‘Cuz this ain’t the life I’ll leave you, no no This ain’t the life I’ll leave you, no no This ain’t the life I’ll leave you, no no This ain’t the life I’ll leave Mmm, no no no Did those shotguns start at dawn? I could’a slept through Stalingrad I let the neighbors hunt the land ‘Cuz I know they’re all men of God The cellar’s stocked for survival And I’d spend my last days arming for A war that I wont fight in There’s a lot that they Can take from me, yeah But that ain’t the life I’ll leave you, no no That ain’t the life I’ll leave you, no no That ain’t the life I’ll leave you, no no That ain’t the life I’ll leave Mmm, no no no You’re hardly here when you’re home It’s like you’re living in retreat Like you see some threat I don’t But I’m not afraid for my own life No… I’m afraid for the life I’ll leave you I’m afraid for the life I’ll leave you Mmm, yes yes ‘Cuz you’ll be in your bunker too someday Yeah, you’ll be in your bunker too someday Oh yeah, you’ll be in your bunker too someday Yeah yeah, you’ll be in your bunker too someday Someday! Someday!

I hear the drum of a desperate moth Caught in the screen and glass The streetlights reach in through the curtain cloth Stretching the shadows cast We pick ourselves from the city’s teeth Throw some worn-out record on And each of our breaths is deafening In the silence between each song Honey, don’t love me please I’m not the man I thought I’d be You say “Sometimes it’s like I’m a guest ‘In hell everything is fine’” And the words are like stones through a hornet’s nest “There’s worse things to lose than time” Honey, don’t: Love me please I’m not the man that I wanna be Oh, and days burn down A pile of ashes On the ground And seasons that we Wait it out Go passing in a breeze Days burn down And all the time you Swore wont count It passes in a Breeze and now It’s you and i alone You say “I’d murder the fuckers I’d wring all their god-damned throats We’ll never find cover But the demons aren’t yours alone” No, no, no, no No, no, no, mmm So let ‘em out, Let ‘em out on me Let ‘em out” Another night in our pleasant hell A swarm starts rising from my chest

It's the 42nd parallel But half of this bar They talk like they're from somewhere else With a fake southern drawl It's like I turned the AM dial Sliding through to get a beer I'll stick around a little while But I don't wanna be long here They fly the rebel flag in Michigan They're born with the right Grandkids of militiamen Bred for the fight I hear these villains playing victim Though they're falling on deaf ears The same words sounded different Back when I belonged here Those same words sounded different Back when I belonged here I knew these men as kids When I was like 'em myself Righteous with an ignorance Unknown to itself But gravity took over I saw a world beyond this sphere If it'd pulled me closer I still might belong here Instead, I came back every Christmas Bit my tongue till it bled Felt my closest grow distant As their blue blood went red Felt 'em recognize a stranger Too far gone to draw in near Didn't notice I was changing Till I didn't belong here Didn't notice I was changing Till I didn't belong here Now, I'm drunk under the glimmer Of a thousand more stars And they'll go red as they grow dimmer Till they're lost to the dark I'll be restless in my searching As heaven disappears Man, I used to be so certain Back when I belonged here So here's to every nowhere village To the dark-hidden stars To the places god no longer visits Or sends his regards I left here for a reason Way back then it wasn't clear With some distance now I see it I don't wanna belong here With some distance now I see it I don't wanna belong here

Let a light down through the clouds I swore this storm would break by now It billows and it drums But nothing ever comes And my heart is wearing out Beaten like a cornered mouse Hoping for a sign A peace I just can’t find What if nothing ever comes And everything is never enough To raise me from despair The weight when nothing’s there? But still I wait my turn As if mercy might be earned And weren’t some random pattern In the sky And still I sing this prayer Though I know there’s nothing there There’s a light I’ve felt But every time it fell My chin was tilted down There must be something here… There must be something here… There must be something here…

Your uncle’s on his shit again Four fingers of Midleton Nursing all his lone regrets Laughing off his eulogy That all the fools he used to be And all the men he might have been Wound up him instead What will you have when you’re looking back Once what’s ahead is the distant past And all of the life that you left to chance Wastes away? Wastes away? Sipping something on the rocks Spinning on a moonlit dock Numb as an old bruise I’m poring over everything I got regrets ahead of me But I’m wondering which ones I’ll choose And which choose me instead What will I have when I’m looking back? Once what’s ahead is the distant past The sum of a life that was left to chance What will I have? Man, I don’t know, but I don’t want to waste away, no I don’t want to waste away, no I don’t want to waste away, no I don’t want to waste away To waste away anymore

Blue Bleeds through the blinds Another new year The same old lang synes Come… Come… I saved your birthday cards “Your twenties,” you wrote “Are gonna be hard” But there’s empty fifths in your trash And there’s questions that I’m Too terrified to ask Yeah… Feel the harsh light Of the red morning sun You can wait your whole life For an answer that won’t come But if the chyrons start I hope that you’re walking in a field, Counting stars None of this Hemingway crap Just running the dog through the Tall hissing grass You could stock your shelter Till the big one hits How long do you figure an apocalypse is? And what’ll you do till then? Till the end time begins? Till the end time begins? Why’d you hunker Down there on your own? Fighting demons Like they’re yours alone? ‘Cuz if you believe There’s a shred of a chance We’re not doomed Stop saving Your soul and Put the damned thing to use ‘Cuz yes I promise I’m a lot like you I’ve never been so sure of our certain doom But what do we do till then? Till the end time begins? Till the end time begins?

So Before we go There’s something you ought to know There are bones In the shipwrecks below Holding their dying pose And they went Clawing for breath Clinging to hope that They would make it Out Mmm Out And when The panic sets in And your body betrays you Your screams won’t make a sound You gotta kick like hell And save yourself somehow Knowing you’ll drown Clinging to hope That you might make it Out Out Out Ohh… And if You kick till you hit Grab a handful of mud To prove you made it Down