How long can you hold your breath? Two minutes? Two thousand years? The city sits upon your neck— snakes, so still suspended upside-down in drinking water— saliva now a nutrient feeding grand machines. Modern industry rushing past your memory, quaint, unthreatening fragment of nostalgia that you are; frozen, beheaded as you are.
Published as lyrics for GODHEADSCOPE’s Patience EP, 2011.
I still lie on my side of the bed. The dog still curls in the place she curled when she curled behind your legs. Her ears stand up at every sound and my heart leaps to meet you. I am aching for the day I forget to grieve. The column of moonlight from the window over the bed illuminates every speck of dust; every memory overhead. Every moment I think of you is a moment I won’t sleep. I am aching for the day I forget to grieve. I still lie on my side of the bed. The dog still curls in the place she curled when she curled behind your legs. You were the reason I looked ahead. Now the future haunts my dreams. I am aching for the day I forget to grieve.
Published as lyrics for Cindervoice’s Forget To Grieve single, 2014.
Floor. Ceiling. Walls of light. My shadow seeps into my skin. My shape is lost to my eye. Floor. Ceiling. Walls of light. A motherless, fatherless point of shadow— God, the memory of sleep, recoils. I am behind the metal door. My spirit springs to your eye.
Published as lyrics for GODHEADSCOPE’s A City Out Of Sight LP, 2007.
There are many voices inflected in your own: every intonation an echo. Notes shedding their ashes; cinders in the throat. Something long forgotten now glows. There are many voices harnessed through your throat, remembering their calling— breath burning. Every new beginning: a borrowed melody; a spark of recollection opening. There are many voices inflected in your own: every intonation an echo. Notes shedding their ashes; cinders in the throat. Something long forgotten now glows.
Published as lyrics for Cindervoice’s Before the Turn LP, 2010.
Hatred is a dead body handcuffed to my wrist. I drag it behind me, uphill and down. The face which smears over rocks and concrete is the same as the one I see in the mirror. The fingers which cut grooves into the soil bear my fingerprints; leave their traces. The wake I trail behind me slowly ceases to be red. The passenger sheds his skin. I grow still more hollow. Blank features pass away as my face grows ever harder. My back curves from the weight; the spine is bleached by sun. By the time the bones remaining detach and fall away, there will be nothing left; nothing left to save; but an empty shell dragging empty handcuffs behind.
First published as lyrics for Cindervoice’s Before the Turn LP (2010). / Republished as lyrics for Matthew S. Rosin’s Singing Is Contagious EP (2020).