I hope you’ve fallen in love with your dissatisfaction Your grievances and your comeuppances will be wed The bridal shower presents lined up by the stairwell Wrapped in satin but laced with dread A secret too good to be kept alive The fountain spilling secrets to the groom to be Overflowing the empty boxes and lists to be checked Your head sinks back and lets the water run And you wanted me for the last time I got too comfortable I want to take a stake in some cobweb-covered corner See the way you test out your Cute little inconveniences That make your cheeks flush Down the drain goes your poison toys of lust Dripping all over that freshly polished counter And you wanted me for the last time I got too comfortable Even an honorable thief has to break the law But it’s always the worst, just before the guests arrive And they pack up their pride and forget their shoes With their disgust staining their dress blues And you wanted me for the last time I got too comfortable

Well I’m sure she was just what you were looking for The way her eyes dragged their way across your chest The way she critiqued your outfit and you took it as a cue to undress The trappings of her shallow mind And you seemed so much happier with her And she was charmed by the way you threw your efforts to the rain But kept what was below the belt under lock and key But your intentions could never quietly rest They came out like a bullet through the chest And everyone knows you at this party, still An illicit affair makes a cheap thrill That scratches at the housefly you’re itching to kill And you seemed so much happier with her And you seemed so much happier with her Than you ever were with me The way she couldn’t put her pity aside while you were accused And I was on every front line in disguise defending you While you’re dismissing her peculiarities with a wave of your hand “Those are women's things, oh dear, I could never” Toss it aside as you brush stray hairs behind her ear Don’t intend for anything but a heartfelt reaction And that kiss is just a novelty factor And afterthought attentions are what she’s after And you’re willing to accommodate And you seemed so much happier with her And you seemed so much happier with her

The kind of rush over land that takes the cake and leaves it in the oven burning Builds a fire like a ruined skyscraper that’s bound to be torn down Flirting with the corporate politician and the door-to-door salesman And you think of how her lips used to curl with that activists righteous sneer Painting shoe polish on the iron stairwell Disorientated at the visual hallucinations The monochromes that circle around your tired eyes Carrying bags armed with leather Between arms covered with bruises and sores It’s a helpless affair The mistress and the makeshift husband What does it matter to you You picked the state of mind and you have to stand by what you choose And the chime of your keys can’t mimic a bell They just beg to be silenced On another affair One of those sophisticated entrances To a run-down apartment complex Behind the golden gate lie a thousand neutered geese With a gift shop and a landmark-themed dress code All the men wear gray and the women wear white All the kids wear shirts with suicide notes And their toys repeat the old quotes Stolen from vintage after-school specials What does it matter to you You picked the state of mind and you have to stand by what you choose And the chime of your keys can’t mimic a bell They just beg to be silenced On another affair The doorman will claim to have recognized you before Politely decline and rush up the stairs Don’t pay kind regards to him Some sort of faux form of gratitude Will send you on your way Say you’re a tourist, just another tourist And then off you go A borrowed but never broken in House will be heard by outsiders You know what you came for, whatever you sought Another trophy to be bought And you changed your name so it didn’t flow You’ll have to explain that to her as you go Time is to be wasted on making amends They’re coming for your talking heads What does it matter to you You picked the state of mind and you have to stand by what you choose And the chime of your keys can’t mimic a bell They just beg to be silenced On another affair On the streets again and the colors blend together A different shade seems ominous I don’t care to understand your maker You make some casual remark about pollution She wants to hail a taxi, you have to say no The drivers are vicious at this hour of winter They’re working for the government They have no contrived love for their profession They want to assassinate the half-hearted victors And you’re just trying to get her on a plane to Denver But if traffic has its way, the lines will be the end of her The bouquet is in disarray What does it matter to you You picked the state of mind and you have to stand by what you choose And the chime of your keys can’t mimic a bell They just beg to be silenced On another affair Parking tickets giving out paper cuts English looks like any other language Like the ghosts of a dead-end carriage Who took their poor horses for granted And you don’t even remember you share the last name The politics of poetry Of a frying pan struck thrice with lightning And the eggs are steaming hot What does it matter to you You picked the state of mind and you have to stand by what you choose And the chime of your keys can’t mimic a bell They just beg to be silenced On another affair

How lovely it is to be alive Rickety tears falling down The trailer’s been cut short for the main feature It’s so unexpected And you were at the Ferris wheel How wretched it is to be alive Following deeds your ancestors wrote They never paid a claim to a dull note I was full of it And you were watching from the bleachers And I know you take me for a beggar who robbed you of your riches And I took for granted how you made money off my misfortune But if you beckon strays to the score of your own silence Then surely you’ll find the alleyways lined up to seduce you The way an Easter egg cracks at the fall of summer on your lap Like how you take time before you get cozy and lean back And the auctioneer sneaks up on you to make his claim Lining up the lovers who’ve you’ve laid Their bodies wrapped in gauze you bought But the remains of their nail polish stain the sheets They all just beg to differ And the cycle continues no matter where you go Wheels spinning on their lonesome own Flailing their motions, flailing their fears The seasons in second gear And I know you take me for a beggar who robbed you of your riches And I took for granted how you made money off my misfortune But if you beckon strays to the score of your own silence Then surely you’ll find the alleyways lined up to seduce you The way an Easter egg cracks at the fall of summer on your lap Like how you take time before you get cozy and lean back

I write to you my darling Everything my words could never tell Yes, my dying breath will never live on without you Because without you, I’d cease to exist I write to you my darling Because when I look in your eyes, I can’t see my face anymore I don’t recognize the reflection in the mirror And perhaps that’s for the best I love you We had a good run, but your intent leaves me at fault I love you The way you deny you ever smiled at the flash of my admiration I love you I know it’s my fault that I left the bathroom crying I love you You insist to forget my urges to leave a young man dying I love you If all I do is create problems, why not slit the throats of the roots I love you The way you take my words of affection for pity I love you Are you pushing me away to save your own sense of self I love you And if I leave, will you revert back to your old shell I love you It was a stupid rhetorical What would I leave you for I love you You think that everyone created their scars to rival yours I love you You’re only the third person I’ve left to corrupt me But you’re the first to gut the life out of me I love you And I’m susceptible to suggestion But I’m not familiar with this newfound aggression I love you The way you trail your fingers down your chin I love you Mapping out all the routes you took before the capes thawed I love you Your fingers run cold The way I could bite off their tips splattered on the canvas I love you You know we could never hurt each other We just chip away the iron coats we built Sparks blinding us I love you The way you were painting the living room with your blood I love you And you wither at the smell that rose from the garden taunted you with I love you That stink of denial that trails down your forehead I love you You relish the chance to see a dying man come alive at the sight of his life expiring I love you I’ll savor the sweetness you strangled away from me I love you The taste that remained, its flavor has gone sour I love you The way your frown trickles across the color of your cheeks I love you And you were being so particular about the way I voiced my complaints I love you Well no one could’ve ever wanted me the way you do I love you And it was good as done once the seeds soaked up the blood And as long as I’m alive The last decade while your mind expires And the best thing I can say that isn’t kind Is I love you I love you I love you

The light behind your eyes dangling from the crystal chandelier On the balcony, the love you lost is bursting through the seams of the amplifier The speakers you arraigned The bed you made got torn up in the hurricane And the rows of cynics you plea to be fools Who stitch themselves up to look like your straw men And whoever won the game by another man’s rules Was just casually superstitious The wedge that has saddled on the edge of a cliff The memento that cemented its stake in an alleyway Burning up the bridges A body made to lay, to be admired by passerby Dressed in jagged rows of black and red Another hesitancy dead The circles that drown out the breathing of your mind The flush of first life and the last gasp of hope That exiled itself like a thief that was itching to get caught The scratch that rested upon your back And your tongue is dragging its sorry self in the snow Wanting to be cold And the air seemed to relish in how it circled the sky How the circuits in your veins burst at the seams So it seemed When it was only a moment of composure it took to regain a shameless sense of almost genius

Home was where you abandoned all the flowers you had grown Their stems had begun to wrap their way around The ending seemed too bittersweet For the beginning to come on too strong It’s your sorry state of unspoken affairs We’ve gotten used to the way your smile seems to expire At the mere thought of depression A quick nod and a well-thought-out wink I’m in disbelief at how you spelled out the kitchen sink Now if beggars are choosers who can eat their own cake Then you can have the crown and the jewels will be fake A tenderly spoken regret over the telephone line Cut through all the personal wires We’ve gotten used to the way your smile seems to expire At the mere thought of depression A quick nod and a well-thought-out wink I’m in disbelief at how you spelled out the kitchen sink In the lonesome streets which you wandered Painted in colors beautifully Where a telegraph can fetch a dollar for a nickel short of a dime The lines of a crumbled, torn-up check May be the only words you have left And you said it was chance How the dry skin dangled down your lower lip The bruises hanging on betting their chips Reflecting against the same old sky We’ve gotten used to the way your smile seems to expire At the mere thought of depression A quick nod and a well-thought-out wink I’m in disbelief at how you spelled out the kitchen sink We’ve gotten used to the way your smile seems to expire At the mere thought of depression A quick nod and a well-thought-out wink I’m in disbelief at how you spelled out the kitchen sink

My father came up to my hotel room today A little joint in Oklahoma City, it meant the world to me The fluorescent lights seemed a little brighter, how they glared as I moseyed on in And I nearly fled to the elevator but was beckoned back by my better instincts This became a little bigger than I anticipated This became a scandal covered with dirt And to dig myself out would require more than I could master All trial and error before seemed lackluster Oh but it could only manage to be a shame A strike against the goodwill of your surname That’s a cry too far from the streets you ran You keep changing the plan What was the line about divorces and spare change How love lasts forever, but money stays the same Another lofty standard for you to flout In the name of what Us, not him, she said Oh but it could only manage to be a shame A strike against the goodwill of your surname That’s a cry too far from the streets you ran You keep changing the plan And it was just another standard sentence barer An end to the heir of your father’s bearers I left alongside them And left two weeks later Oh but it could only manage to be a shame A strike against the goodwill of your surname That’s a cry too far from the streets you ran You keep changing the plan Oh but it could only manage to be a shame A strike against the goodwill of your surname That’s a cry too far from the streets you ran You keep changing the plan

I don’t think I could ever have enough To ever get what I wanted to be sure of It was a reckoning They were singing “Begone with it” That false innocence I was chasing after Came back to bite me in the ankles Another demon for me to wrangle And pin to the bedroom floor It was a reckoning They were singing “Begone with it” At the alter of all my remains Of dirty clothes and aspiring ashtrays Of trying to emulate rock cliches And become casually hollow It was a reckoning They were singing “Begone with it” And that was the end of my demise And the first chapter of the rest of my life Up to the pavement and the pebbles dry My hands lay perfect for a footprint It was a reckoning They were singing “Begone with it”

What an end to the last state of the affair The last message before the sparks could collide At an airline ticket counter The logo's colors seemed to splatter across the walls Modernized design seemed to foretell a sign But there was no one else who would care what you were on about Layover in Denver The emails make it dead and clear Your layover in Denver Should be the last thing they put to rest with you Another sorry steeple glowing out the window The escalators lie weeping on the ground The endless rows of terminals Like little graves of all the mom-and-pop shops that have been sold An overeager woman by the counter like a preacher Her sermon was prewritten by God And it doesn’t really speak to me It means nothing about its quality I’m sure someone around here found it helpful Layover in Denver The emails make it dead and clear Your layover in Denver Should be the last thing they put to rest with you And in half an hour You’ll be just another speck Some flimsy star rushing towards the sky You’re just another overachiever who’ll be weeping in their hotel room As soon as no one else is in sight As the house lays empty The guitar sat gathering dust Wailing for a true call to arms But it would be found limp and alone Still retaining its tone And everyone would be called home that night Layover in Denver The emails make it dead and clear Your layover in Denver Should be the last thing they put to rest with you Layover in Denver The emails make it dead and clear Your layover in Denver Should be the last thing they put to rest with you