1. ROSE QUARTZ

(Instrumental)


2. FULTON STREET I

Found a body at the rest stop
Buried in the woods beneath
The garbage and leaves
Workers clearing overgrowth
Saw hidden in the brush
Just beyond the line of the trees
A jawbone and teeth
Winter into spring
On Fulton Street

And cities grow weeds
And cities grow
And cities keep secrets in the trees
In the shadow of a pyramid
And cities grow weeds
And cities grow
By the river and the covered bridge
All cities grow weeds
And I know
All the memories your dreams retrieve
You pick a dress out for the funeral
Hold a vigil in a field
Release lanterns at night
And I saw on the shoulder of the interstate
When I followed your eyes
When I followed your eyes
All the crosses for the accidents
All the photos and the flowers by the street

Will I ever put flowers by the street?
Will I ever put flowers by the street?
Never needed to live and suffer through the pain
All the tyrannies of grief
If I ever do
Will I even have the strength to do anything?
Could I go and leave flowers by the street?
And I saw signs on the shoulder of the interstate
When I followed your eyes
And I saw lights fading every monument
And the passage of time
If I could just try could I banish all the pain in you?
Give you everything you need?
If I hid rose quartz underneath the mattress
Would it help you nights
When you’re struggling to sleep?
When you’re struggling to sleep?

Will I ever be half what I can be?
Can I ever be half what I can be?
If you needed me to be anything
Could I even be half of what you need?
Will I ever be me?
Will I ever be me?
If I could take hands to shake you
Would you want me to?
If it shook you out of grief?
If gave chase
Summers when you tunnel into nothingness
Would it bring you some release?
If I saw signs on the shoulder of the interstate
When I followed where your eyes went
I saw nights spent after midnight in a eulogy
That you never got to give
And I saw fenders bent hard on an oak tree
I saw sirens at the scene
I saw cigarettes falling in the tangle of machinery
Between the console and seat
And I saw hands reach
Car drift across the center line
I saw it all in my dreams
And I saw leaves hiding bodies
In the tree line off the interstate
But I’ve never put flowers by the street
I’ve never put flowers by the street
If you need for me to be anything
I could be everything you need
If you need for me to be anything
I could be everything you need
Every monument
Every memory
And I’ve never put flowers by the street


3. FULTON STREET II

I had a vision of snow
Fall into footprints
I watched the winter whip
And bury everything

Off in the distance
Your figure drifting in mist
On pilgrimage and all alone

You were like a stone
Thrown in a river
Or in your pocket
I was the water
And I watched you tremble
Down into nothing
Sink like an anchor
You’re failing
A phantom
A break in the bone
I will be the one who chases you out in the snow
Go where you tunnel down and the trouble starts
I will follow you out and carry all the pain away

I will be the one who follows you out in the flow
Go if the water swells drags you under
Know I will swallow it whole and carry all the pain away

Nights I wandered out
Head buried in my coat
Snow blowing in everything
Thick like smoke
I could feel the cold growing
How weather makes you hold things tight
On the way to buy us wine
Nights afraid to die

There is that phantom path carved in ghost steps sloped down
To a pond somehow still half-frozen
The evidence of struggle again so many years ago
Our first turn out to Lowell from home

The image returns to me
Again and again
(When will it leave?)

I was waiting for the anger to change
I was waiting for the anger to change
I was waiting for the anger to change
I was waiting for the roof beams to bend
And give way under weight

I was waiting for the anger to change
I was waiting for the anger to change
I was waiting for the anger to change
I was waiting for the roof beams to bend
And the whole thing to break

Chasing your pain
You were like a chain swung in anger
You’re anxious
You’re shaking
I know
The shape of your pain
Painted with the name on your shoulder blade
Never gets older or wakes

And I know the way
Down highways through Ada
To places you waited for friends who can’t show

And I know your dreams
Of opening caskets
You shake in the mattress
You shake in the-


4. RHODONITE AND GRIEF

Lifetimes
Lived and died

For a moment in the turnaround
I was waiting with the car in drive
Watched you hurry on across the parking lot
The image of her life in your mind fades and
I could see an anxious strength in you
A bravery born in pain
Waiting by the front door on your cell phone
Summer at the convalescent home

Kill me by surprise
You said
I don’t want to stay alive to watch the words go first like hers
Lifetimes
Lived and died

In the winter on the porch
Through the the window of the door
I watch
In the kitchen with your notebook open
Frozen in the cold when I’d come back with wine
At the end of every long night
Take a moment you need to just breathe
Whole days in treatment plans
Aphasic patients
Apraxia of speech
Weeks and months go by like this
We function on routines
We sleep
We eat
We read
We eat
We drink
We sleep
We keep her picture on the fridge
I keep a rabbit toy for kids
You gave me strength to fix myself
I gave you tokens
Toys and gifts
To help you grieve
You said
Kill me by surprise
Again
I don’t want to stay alive to watch
the words go first like hers

Winter we huddle in anger
Spring sadness sink in it
Summer accept all departures
In autumn start again
Winter we huddle in anger
Spring sadness sink in it
Summer accept all departures
In autumn start again
I drove around for hours
For gifts to help you heal
The memories of parted ones
The seasons of our grief
Rhodonite for stress relief
Promethazine for sleep
A rabbit toy for children
My deep condolences
Rhodonite for stress
Promethazine for sleep
A rabbit toy for kids
My deep condolences

Lifetimes
Lived and died


5. ANXIETY PANORAMA

You plead for distance
I never change
Buried in behind the brightness
Spill like poison in you
My palm against you
Your ever-anxious days
Buried in behind the brightness
Spill like poison in you
And it causes you to shake
The shape of my mistakes
Buried in behind the brightness
Spill like poison in you
My palm against your forehead
Your ever-anxious days
I felt afraid and ashamed
That I felt anything all
I felt you panicking
You’re shattering
Your catastrophic fall
And I felt long gone
Already so far gone
Already anxious
You’re shaking now
You’re breaking down
I failed you all along

My panic grips your own pain
spills that poison in you
I’m pleading for forgiveness how
I failed so many times
Competes now with your own pain
In your ever-anxious mind

You plea to break your chain
Our ever-changing life
To be buried from behind the darkness hides
That brightest light
My hand against you
Your ever-anxious mind
Will be buried in behind the poison spills
That panic brings back
Image in my mind of the nightstand by your bedside
And the sharp edge you would swing to strike
Would break my hand instead
How you clattered all arrhythmic on that fixture on the wall
Where I caught you silver cabbage moth
Your powder left still lingers in my palm

I was building landmarks for my errors in your scars
I was in the wrong to start
I was building landmarks for my errors in your scars
I was in the wrong
I felt your pain
I felt my hands shake hard
I felt afraid and ashamed
that I felt anything all
I felt your panicking
You’re shattering
Your catastrophic fall
And I felt long gone
I said your name out loud
Already anxious
I broke it all
I’ll fix it all
I failed you all along

My hands buried all the bad in you
My hands never get it back

My hands buried all the bad in you
My hands never get it back


6. IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN

Dream if you want for me to carry on
If you could break it all down for me
I could believe you
Dream if you want for me to carry on
If you could break it all down for me

I remember
You and I in Northern Michigan
The color in between the leaves
Black tourmaline
Blue-green
Like some bioluminescent thing
Come up from the black of the sea
The purl of the breeze
Whispering
I remember
How you stood at the water’s edge
While i was at the line of the trees
And you waded out patiently down
Ever-darkening your step
The shadows grew around your feet
Your ankles and knees
I remember
Trembling
Nights you tunneled inward
Anxious unto panic
I was that watcher on the ridge
Standing on the dune edge faced west
And the night sloped down before me
Like a challenge from myth
But I never moved a inch

Backlit by the campfire blazing
Heaving in a harsh spring wind
Sparks thrown into the low branches to fade
While you floated into water like a ghost ship
Sinking
Days we breezed through everything
Laughed through whole mornings at home
And out warm nights running from sleep
Days like good dreams always
Familiar
Surreal
The sun in the trees
Bleeds marigold and wine
Life
All of its languages here
Love spoke in tongues
Loudly or hushed
Too much of you at once is just enough at all times
My life in the light of you
I remember
Everything
Dream
If you want for me to carry on
You could be like a body in the sea
You could go slowly sink on into nothingness
Or you could float like a lantern in a breeze
You could freeze out of focus on a movie screen
Film careening from the reel
Or you could stay for an ovation
When the credits roll
Focused face right in the center of the frame
You never know
I heard the sound of my feet
Before I felt them pound sand
I heard only my own hard
heartbeat in my head
There was no sound
I saw the water to your knees
Then to your neck
Above your head
I swore you’d drowned
I watched you swim out
I only watched you wade in and Panicked when I lost you
Sprinting now downward
To find you back
As if you even needed me
Or asked
Worry always myself
Too much for your old sadness
Worry until I panic
Tumble to the open shoreline
Kept running toward water alone
The waves against my chest Deafening
Or only your soft laughter in me


7. VIEW FROM OUR BEDROOM WINDOW

You are sleeping in the room alone now
You are restless in the night
When the lightning from the storm strikes
You shine
For a second
In the light

I wait

For the moment when the weather breaks
I can feel you in the mattress shake
I can see the way an old pain holds you
Morning falling in the frame
You stay down

I faced my failure in no way I escaped it
In the calm before a breakdown takes
Like a rapture in the night
You fight hard
I faced my own pain in no way I embraced it
In the bedroom with the door locked tight
Like a coward when the flash burns bright
I’ll hide
Your hands burnt on the torch’s flame
Lighting the path away
Brighter than lightning and burning
Striking the ground
We spend summers awake
We shake at shadow shapes
The wind it rattles our chains
We’re always turning around

You were standing in the doorway
You were staring in the flames
How the fire from the house next door mixed
With the colors from the cop cars
I saw
Neighbors gathered in the the alleyway
In the summer in the heat
I wait for a way that I can chase your pain out
Gather water for the flames
I wait
Nights we both shook
Any noise echoed in our room
Rattled on the floor like shells scattering
Or like hail falling on the hood of our car

Do you remember that drive south?
Coastbound just us two
Savannah west in the mirror
And winter in rearview burning
How the storm fell so harshly
We felt swallowed
And traffic stopped before
And behind us
Hard rain in sheets grey
And unbroken
Hazards flashed dimly
In all directions
Like small satellites
Or like lighthouse beacons
We turned the radio off
I gripped the wheel tight
When the storm burst and clouds split Suddenly open to the sky
All colors at once and us dumbstruck With love and terror both

As if before us stood temples
Ancient and terrifying
The light refracting truth
To see death and life in all things
Your hands burnt on the torch’s flame
I was the last to change
Strike me like a lightning bolt and burning me down
Your hands burnt on the torch’s flame
I was the last to change
Strike me like a lightning bolt and burning me down
The wind rattles our chains

We shake our fists at the pain
We shake at shadow shapes
We cup our hands in the storm
And watch our houses burning
We catch the rain to fight it


8. FOOTSTEPS AT THE POND

You were breaking like the ground beneath me
Burn up like a dream
I keep of lightning strikes
On summer nights
On television

Now

I needed you to be there to carry me to sleep
That night I tripped and broke my ribcage
On a bar seat
Drunk for weeks
Chasing ambulances
Stumble to my bedsheets
Softly drift off after peaceful things
I had once and released down in the streets

Now here and beyond
All footsteps ended at the pond
Don’t get why you believed in me so much
To follow and retrieve it all
That sanctity I scattered so indifferently
Still you called on me to breathe you out
You begged the breeze relieve
Me from what settles deep and
Burns down underneath
If you believe

My love like a battered dog
Wanders under street signs
Limps out into nothingness
Burns up like a bad dream gone

I guess I needed you to freeze me out
Those corners of your dreams
I think you needed me
To bleed out loud
I guess i needed you to freeze me out
Those corners of your dreams
I guess you needed me to leave
Still you carried me to sleep
Leaving when the dream retreats
Grasping for an older me
Some faded image
And it carries you to sleep
Breathes out in the fog before me
Cattails hit your knees to send
Some subtle promise
To scatter all their seeds
To grow before they leave
For life and all its consequential
Complicated scenes
That shake you out of sleep
Scrape your knees beneath your feet
I think we bleed because we need to bleed
We bleed because we need
I just wanted you to carry on and carry me
I guess I wanted you to need the things I needed you to be
I just wanted you to carry on and carry for me
I guess I wanted you to leave
I guess you needed me to bleed out loud
I guess I needed you to freeze me out
Those corners of your dreams
I guess you needed me to bleed out loud
I guess I needed you to freeze me out
Those corners of your dreams
I guess I needed me to leave
Come and shake me from my sleep
Burn up in a bad dream
I could believe
Come and shake me from my sleep
Come and help me believe


9. THERE YOU ARE (HIDING PLACE)

Days that I went missing
Stumbled on a long walk somewhere
So many places we don’t belong
So few do

But you

Came around the corner with your arms wide
Said your favorite words to me
Despite everything
Lift to the clouds on haze or lantern flames
Shuffling off to sleep

To dream I’d never leave again
Shuffling off to sleep
To dream I’d never leave again

Summer shifting like a dream
Summer shifting like a dream for me
You go shuffling off to sleep
To places where you’re hiding out
The anger in your eyes
Bright your life of lightning striking
I was afraid to find an older me alive in you
Afraid that I’d be blinded by the lightness Of a good you never knew

And in the summer
When I was angry
When I was tired
When I was scared
I just stared into nothing
I just stared into nothing

When I was worried
When I was tired
When I was angry or afraid
I just stayed in the same place for days
In the same place for days
In the same place for days
Shuffling off to sleep
Dream I’d never leave again
Shuffling off to sleep
Dream I’d never leave again

Silent by your own hands
You shake now when you speak
Hold tightly to your sleeping
On the concrete of my dreams
And you go silent by your own hands
You break down and you leave

You go nightly with my panic
I get angry
I can’t sleep

But in the summer
I wasn’t angry
I wasn’t tired
I wasn’t scared
I just stared into nothing
I just stared into nothing
I wasn’t worried
I wasn’t tired
I wasn’t angry or afraid
I just paced while the days ran away
While the days ran away

To places where you’re hiding out
The anger in your eyes
Bright your life of lightning striking
I was afraid to die a better you inside of me
Afraid that you would go
Before I had the chance to show the good I know

And in the summer
We’ll get a new home
I’ll get a new start
I’ll get to be
A new better me now
A new better me
I won’t be guilty
I won’t be sorry
I won’t feel angry every day
We’ll just wait while the days run away
While the days run away
While the days run away

Shuffling off to sleep
To dream I’d never leave again
Shuffling off to sleep
Dream I’d never leave again
Shuffling off to sleep


10. YOU ASCENDANT

I had visions of you wandering alone
Daylight burst against
Printed flowers on your dress

And the sun in your hair
Silver white

I watched you walk
Purposefully along the shoulder of the highway
Indifferent to traffic and it to you
As if neither existed

Alone there like all of us

And the summer colors shone
Bright open fields of goldenrod
The sky soft stone
Sapphire and selenite
Agate
Blue lace

Pale white bone in brush
All things to dust return but you keep on

Heading westward quick down Fulton Street
As if a thing beyond compelled you walk now there
And you could not take your eyes away from it

And I could not either

And quickening your pace
Walking in the wind blown backwards toward home
Your face expressionless
You stopped suddenly
Still as carved stone
Waiting for the world to catch up
And I watched you
In awe always
Even in dreams

You raised your arms
Cross-shaped like a monument
Feigning permanence there
Denying her death and yours
And traffic stopped to watch
I knew you’d leave then
Ascending heavenward to breathe
Never in panic again
Peace for you
Forever
Somewhere

I carried on in my visions
Tired and lost for years this way
Only half aware of the light
Shining against the dark
Bright until we die

When I die let me do so beside you
When we die let us go at the same time

When the end comes will we see
Bright lights burst through the evergreens?
Feel the blown sand at our ankles or hear rustling needles in the breeze?

Who can know?
If we could choose the way we leave
Fill out circles on a ballot sheet
Vote the way we’ll go
How the noise will cease
Finally and forever for us both
What would we do?
How would we go?

Would we pass out in barracks beneath bedsheets
Brand new sneakers on our feet
Two by two into a comet tail peacefully to sleep
Forever dream?

When will we leave?

Will we all just disappear?
Or can we be hung up in a gallery
Displayed permanently forever with family
Painted in frames?
Variations on a theme

How will we leave?
Cut in threes?
Displayed in glass cases?
Death in the mind of living things?

Can it be quietly?
Like in the morning drinking coffee with the sunrise
Through the lilies in the window of our bedroom to the garden
Or just drift off watching TV
6:30 in the evening and
Never see it coming at all
Or can we live forever here
Be buried in our better memories
Drunk beside that drainage ditch
Road trip east of Denver
The prison in periphery
Life too beautiful too sweet despite everything
Could we choose to stay forever there
And never leave?
How long do I have to fix this?
Years lost too indifferent and afraid
While you burst to earth around me like lightning at night
How’d I miss a thing so bright?
And where does the shame go now if never away?
No one to blame but me
I wanted everything
How’d I fail so badly?

I have visions of you wandering alone down every city street
Light shaded everything at once
And flowers burst against your knees

And you asked for me to leave

Graceful in your sprinting now through all wind
Your skin pale silver lightning the seasons of your grief
But you are free now

And you asked for me to leave

I love you deeply then and now as ever
Never waver once again at all in any timeline I will bend them all
To find you back to breathe
And you asked for me to leave

I will rend from you those dreams
Release the flowers in the street
Burn the monuments in plywood
And ascend there
To be everything you need
I will be everything you need
I will be everything you need
I will be everything you need