1. |
Cry Your Guts Out
02:13
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I was there double checking my facts, well, here it goes, it comes in two acts. Mock sincerity is the best that I can offer you, and I’m pretty damn good at whatever this is that I do. So I’ll sit with the Virgin Mary in my sleeplessness and ask her to ask God why I’m obsessed with this unhappiness that’s always present in the back of my head. I listened hard, but I’m not sure what she said. So we got drunk until we passed out off the ideas that we knew nothing about and went and cried our pathetic guts right out, and I’m not even sure what we cried about. I was told to never joke around about suicide or answers that I find unsound, but if I don’t keep on laughing at confusing things, I don’t think I’ll last. I’m going to break up into pieces and every separate part with disagree. I won’t be so melancholy if I scream until I find a calling. Cry your guts out.
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2. |
Unio Mystica
04:00
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I was baptized as an infant swallowed by a holy sea. I can’t remember the day, but I swear it washed my sins from me. I was given unio mystica with an ichthys made of steel to prove that my faith was real. I guess it doesn’t fit my Calvinistic sneer that I was saved 100 times out of summer camp fear, so tell me to be perfect, tell me to be near. I’m sitting on a hill where I found a stash of beer. I think I’m speaking in tongues and you don’t know what you’re running from. You’re a mess. The older I get the more I see. I bring forth this shattered idealist, a hypocrite chained at the wrist, who spends his time screaming at God. I’ve got a frontal cortex that’s getting wired wrong. And so we’ll get kicked out of church like prostitutes chased with stones, but there’s a hidden scream in my southside apartment room that’s begging for a ticket to take us home (wherever that is). The older I get the more I see this world doesn’t remotely revolve around me. You see so much potential while I’m mediocrity at its finest example with unio mystica and an ichthys made of steel, and I’m still waiting for that faith to seem real.
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3. |
Good Intentions
03:01
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It’s getting harder to be self-exalted. Draw a line. Divide humility and hate. This autumn weather gets the past restarted: a time machine with my ambitions and beliefs. Pop a bottle of champagne. It’s another happy new year. And I can feel my past’s disapproval with her hands all over me. Take me back to the moment that I stopped pushing. When was it that I gave up? When was it that I was told that I can’t get better? When was it that I gave in? Tell me that I’m not going to heaven. I’d be lying if I didn’t agree, but I won’t let you keep me out. You will not lock the door on me. I want to be a better person. I’m not the lost cause you see. And I will start what I can’t finish because you will not lock the door on me. And I will waste my precious time trying to earn what I’ve already got because I will never deserve this.
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4. |
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Finished off your gin last night. Cut another thread to my permanent past life. And our opinions crystallize over time. There’s a monster in your head and a monster in mine. I will burn your photographs when I am ready. I’ll take my ring to a pawnshop in time. We used to say we could get through anything. I hope that dream is still alive in that pawnshop clients mind. Keep finding polaroids and wedding invites. We let that laughter die against your grandparent’s advice. And you said get love when it comes until it’s lost. Said everyone would leave once they found out who I was. You burnt your photographs because you were ready. Took your ring to a shop in no time. (Well, it felt like no time). Keep finding photographs from our wedding. We used to read our vows all the time. We used to say we could get through anything, and when that pawn shop client buys that ring I hope he does better than me and spends his time to keep that hope alive.
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5. |
St. Thomas
02:52
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The only way that we’ll be talking is if I’m screaming. I started praying again, alone in my car, to what I don’t believe in. Taking all this back. All that’s holy and unchecked. Here’s that part in Job where he’s screaming “why’d you let me go,” and I read, reread, and I don’t really know, but why can’t we get all the truth without the pesticide? That communion wine glass, that Roman battle cry. Lama sabachthani. We keep saying it’s all going to finally work out and make sense. Well, maybe if we do good works we can finally resurrect, and the only reason I know your name is the right time and the right place. Here’s St. Thomas with his hands all in your wounds and side asking how you’re dead but now it seems that you’re alive. But I was born on the holy backs of all those heretics that died so is it palm branches or Chi Roh in the sky? Lama sabachthani.
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6. |
Bleak
02:59
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Nervous look into a crystal ball of plans. Sitting in an anthropology class. Glancing at the clock to make it move. Hours later and we’re lying on the concrete with make-up running we’re calling home to tell them all the news. I didn’t know this thing would get so bleak. I’m getting used to contact I did not want to receive. I’m making sense of the good times that we found when I was the object you could push and act on anytime you’re down. Always so good at framing all of my sin, I think I used to like myself before I let you in. I don’t mean to bother you. I love your company, but I’m scared to do this all again. I want to be hopeful like I was then in spite of every cynical collapse we saw in our high school friends. I don’t want this thing to get so bleak. I want to know your thoughts, your aspirations and beliefs. What’s a second wedding look like anyway? I don’t know what I want, but I’d love it if you wanted to stay. Because I don’t want to feel anything for anyone, but I do, and I seem to like myself when I’m with you.
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7. |
Up All Night
03:19
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I got an outside look at your west side home. We were talking all night, but we still feel alone. Sovereign nations making deals all night. My bones might break. I think I could make this right. Off the porch and out of sight. In the ambien we deal and the snuff films on our phone screens. We’ve been talking all night, yeah, we’re going to be free. I got an outside look at your west side home. An aesthetic assault screaming “man, I’m not alone.” Well, I’m loving myself in relation to you. My bones might break, but come on. We talked all night long. In the ambien we deal and the snuff films on our phone screams. We’ve been talking all night, yeah, we’re going to be free. We were up all night. We were talking so loud about the things that we knew nothing about. And, man, we’re going to change the world. Oh yeah, you better believe it. I don’t have that hope, but, man, I want to believe it.
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8. |
Here, All Dysfunctional
02:55
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Writing stories in my head that we can live in. Speaking foreign languages hoping anyone is listening. Playing cards. We’re dancing on the Seine. You caught me smoking, talking, pray that we’re whole again. And here, all dysfunctional, we can hide from the public eye. Encasing ourselves in gold, wearing peasant garb, so we can hide. Proclaim our mediocrity! Let the world do what it wants. We can hold these relic memories under stained glass or a Gothic arch. The setting is perfect, but the characters are wrong. Tie us up like martyrs. Throw us overboard. There’s poison on these pages, and I’ve been skimming them a lot. Canonized before we met. There’s nothing good inside our hearts. Everything is fair. Everything is war. I don’t want to be alone anymore, and I don’t love you, but I can try. A tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye. You can be my easy way out. I can be your easy way out.
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9. |
Potemkin Villages
03:23
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I may be lost, but I’ve got everything I need. An icon of a mustard seed. A reimagined remedy. In our Potemkin villages, we’ll find ourselves holding candlelight vigils to what we thought we felt. And I’ve been trying. I’ve been trying real hard to get us to go back to the start, and I’ve been singing hymns to a fallen Rome, always convinced that we’ll find our way home. I may be lost, but I know that I’m going back. I can’t seem to let you even if the concept is abstract. In our Potemkin villages, we’ll find what we forgot. Among the lilies in fields, we’ll pick up and dust off what we lost. I’ve been taking pictures in this crowded place. Hoping then I might see your face. We’ve got a long way to go. Wearing our parents’ clothes and peeking into the windows of our former homes.
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10. |
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Flying out to a school out west. Between The Bars when you’re dispossessed. On the phone last night I remember that we never thought we’d see the other side. I hope out there nothing hurts. In the big rock candy dirt, a mile off the coast, there’s a little bit of hope in the earth. It’s all that we know. I’m drunk, and I let my mouth run. I just hope that I have finally earned your trust. I know you know that I won’t leave you alone. I hope we’ve gotten past black and white sheep. I hope you keep on moving way past me. I’m looking forward to phone calls home. We’ve been cursed with the same bad genes: addictions and heart disease. Playing outside while the world’s catching fire right before our eyes. Begging to God for a sign. Clouds clearing up late at night. Through the meds and the fights, there’s a little bit of hope in our blood, and it’s all that we know. Plans are caving in on Christmas Eve. Well, I’m glad you stuck around and talked to me. I know you know that I won’t leave you alone. We are so bad at I-love-yous. Turn the chapter real quick and ignore the cues. I think we mastered the Irish goodbye. We would have been friends in real life. And the worst thing they ever did was make us forget what we were like when we were kids.
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11. |
Anniversary
03:28
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I haven’t cried in a year, but I think I’ve gotten close. I’ve tried to force it out with therapists and alcohol. So I’ve been breaking B strings and telling jokes to an inattentive crowd to feel less alone. I went to church for the first time in a minute. I can feel guilt, but I don’t feel forgiven. I keep coming back to what I think I’ve always believed. We’ll find God in the street at rock bottom getting kicked in the teeth, looking back at us in Arbus photography. And I don’t think I’ll let you down more than I’ve let myself down. Happy Anniversary. I’ve got a long way to go and a lot more to read. Every mentor that saw potential is looking at me. Love is some cold-ass paperwork when you split up to tell this no-fault state what you’re worth. And I’m scared that communion is just bread, and this red wine won’t make me feel alive again. I don’t think that I believe in anything except for some dumb blind hope commitment to an upswing. I think I’m on the upswing.
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josiah sutton does music. Des Moines, Iowa
I play in bands sometimes. When I’m not, this is the page I post solo music or miscellaneous projects.
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