A couple midnights back I called you from A parking lot relapse Manic and fussed You begged and pled with me “Don’t do something stupid” I turned my phone off turned The engine on And climbed the asphalt curves Til my car stopped On highway seventeen Underneath the moon this Is my Gethsemane And I’m my own Judas You intervened from my pocket Drove out and called off the guards Then you managed to convince Me down from the precipice And got me into your car Sorry for having a breakdown Sorry for frantic phone calls Sorry I couldn’t surmount All my frustration self doubt All of my vices and flaws Sorry for crashing at your house When everybody had gone Sorry for my broken vows Sorry for suicide counts Sorry for ruining prom Valentina know I let my Boutonniere wilt by the bedside So that as the time comes when I Wither and fade away That night will do the same A few years back I start -Ed counting days And kept my tally marks With razorblades Though I’ve spent so long clean I still hear the sirens Their coaxing melodies Bring me to submission Oh what a waste of a blood clot Oh what a waste of a fight Oh what a waste of resolve When all I saved is now scrawled Across the porcelain tile But I’m not wasting a blood clot I’m gonna put up a fight I’m gonna heal up my scars I’m gonna stare down the stars And tear apart the moonlight There’s a permanent means to Get out from beneath this moon Though I’ve spent so long clean I still hear the sirens Their coaxing melodies Bring me to submission

We were running through the ether of a youth That the world could never seem to convolute When I looked into your eyes I saw a blue Unadulterated by the loss you knew I remember when you told me there’s a god Agree to not All the houses of the holy couldn’t keep You safe from me Molly let’s run far from the sirens Leave the doldrums far back behind us Red lights dance across the darkened street Following me Molly let’s run this avalanche is Looming above and growing rampant This disaster of our own design Is yours and mine We were running from the smoke that we had left Rising from the ashes of your ex boyfriends We were running through the grass at one AM Whispered through the neighborhoods and barely fled I remember when you broke it to your mom She prayed and sobbed Even in the bleaker moments of your faith I’ll keep you safe Molly let’s run far from the sirens Leave the doldrums far back behind us Red lights dance across the darkened street Following me Molly let’s run this avalanche is Looming above and growing rampant This disaster of our own design Is yours and mine I remember on the day you got confirmed You gave your word If the father that you pray to listens then Thank him we’re friends Molly let’s run far from the sirens Leave the doldrums far back behind us Red lights dance across the darkened street Following me Molly let’s run this avalanche is Looming above and growing rampant This disaster of our own design Is yours and mine

We got a phone call Your father sounded distraught I felt a sad shock No one knew how to respond We all hadn't seen you since July in Greenlake three years past I was left to reminisce On humid mosquito attacks In retrospect I should've let Those Wisconsin Bugs take my skin That way at least I'd be in the Midwest with you We'd congregate in your Carterville living room Sometimes I wish that my folks Had never moved to the coast We'd have more in common than Last name self hate and Granddad In your hospital sheets I hope you recall we Wandered through a frozen January forest Our eyes slowly gazed up At the snowy treetops Maybe now the same cold Has blossomed in your soul In retrospect I should've let Illinois breath Freeze me to death That way at least I'd be in the Midwest with you We'd congregate in your Carterville living room Sometimes I wish that my folks Had never moved to the coast We'd have more in common than Last name self hate and Granddad I am just the way my father raised me He is just the way my grandfather raised him I am just the way my father raised me So then why are you and I so different Cousin can't you see we share the same blood But the two of us do not share the same skin Cousin all the things that you abstain from Are the things I find myself indulging in Jake I am stubborn and selfish With the best of intention And deceitful execution Shane I am anxious and rigid With a shy polite kindness Extroverted yet secluded We share this Scandinavian vitriol That's only weaker than a family's bond We lived for sixteen years before we forced our Two thousand mile separate paths to cross Our fathers who art sharing beers Share laughter despite the lost years Why do we share homes so seldom When life’s joy’s with whom we share blood Maybe it’s because they moved from Napa To Decatur Through Aurora In time they learned To remain in Their uprooted Self sufficient Self seclusion Maybe it's because when carcinoma Took their mother My father was two years younger They grew from it Differently Left us cousins Different beings In retrospect I should've let Those Wisconsin Bugs take my skin In retrospect I should've let Illinois breath Freeze me to death That way at least I'd be in the Midwest with you We'd congregate in my Carterville living room Sometimes I wish that my folks Had never moved to the coast We'd have more in common than Last name self hate and Granddad In retrospect I should've let Those Wisconsin Bugs take my skin In retrospect I should've let Illinois breath Freeze me to death Now that we’re facing again I wonder what all this meant

Little Nova As soon as you get older You’ll find a world of love and pain Your mother was hopeful and glassy eyed The day that she packed up both of your lives You spent your first year clinging to hillsides And time petrified in the black and white She loaded the van and She buckled your car seat Gripping to your small hand She drove onto our street Little Nova As soon as you get older You’ll find a world of love and pain You lost the world before you came Little Nova Rest your head on my shoulder You’ll find a home in our embrace These redwoods will hold back the rain My childhood memories stand upon This driveway, this front porch, and this dead lawn At night, they project onto the drywall And I watch him smile like he’d never gone Teaching me and my brother How to ride a skateboard Gripping onto my small hands And guiding me forward Talking sweet to your mother With his arms around her And envisioning their plans For futures together Of which you were the one That never could fall through And after the nine months We finally saw you Little Nova As soon as you get older You’ll find a world of love and pain You lost the world before you came Little Nova Rest your head on my shoulder You’ll find a home in our embrace These redwoods will hold back the rain He towers in my mind A constant pinnacle of Charity sacrifice And indivisible love I wrote to you a note Just after his departure Through all of this still know He’ll always be your father Little Nova As soon as you get older You’ll find a world of love and pain You lost the world before you came Little Nova Rest your head on my shoulder You’ll find a home in our embrace These redwoods will hold back the rain