There's some kind of loneliness that comes from looking at a photograph where you're the only thing left alive in the subject matter. Something about the background seems so ancient. Maybe you were too distracted to recognize the fact that someone was capturing a piece of your soul, maybe you were too young to appreciate the immortality of your flaws.

It’s our mistakes that outlive us in most cases, floating weightless through an endless stream of minutes and years; the gifts we take for granted, the people we take advantage of, the time we take to realize and appreciate the best parts of our existence. We are, all of us, survived by our faults; our furious fits of jealousy, our bitter resentment, our exhausted loathing.

Maybe you’re visualizing your own oblivion, or passing, or however you’d like to refer to it. Maybe you’re envisioning a gathering of respectable adults and beautiful children mourning you with the tiniest fraction of a smile as they recall each glorious moment they spent in your company which, they’ve just now decided, they will cherish for the rest of their lives which at this point seem quite brief. Maybe you’re a bit more honest and true to your nature, you’re picturing a congregation composed of despondent acquaintances cursing the name of the god that they’ve chosen and sobbing violently to effectively display the concept of grieving.

One way or another it happens and the bulk of us aren’t given a heads up to find the closure or meaning we might seek to die with even the slightest sense of fulfillment. It’s as if there’s this part of us that’s always whispering, “Absolution can wait.” Maybe you don’t conceive any real purpose behind your presence on this planet. Maybe you’re just chewing and gnawing your way through blondes and brunettes, paychecks and apartments, months and years; debasing the very thought of a higher calling, or any sort of calling for that matter. Maybe crawling along the stretch of time you’ve been given becomes that much easier as you ridicule and dishearten the folks who still have some kind of focus or depth to the breaths they take and paths they choose.

There’s some kind of clarity that comes with the loneliness you collect so many years after something so unexplained--so mercilessly cruel came along to take such a crucial piece of your life away from you. Something like five years can feel so small when you catch a glimpse of that photograph.

Maybe like a pistol or a dagger that I keep in my pocket
I'll complete you,
shredded photos of your boyfriends dangle 'round your feeble neck
from the entrails of your locket.

Maybe like a truck stop or a motel where your stretch yourself thin
I'll protect you,
a collected sickness that you spread to the bastards that proceed you
from the prices of your skin.

Let's fuck each other in the garden of eden.
We'll pack our oars and paddle out to the heathens,
offer them knowledge of the beasts that they swallow,
give them a catalog of guidelines set in stone to follow.

Maybe like a whisper that condemns you as you continue
I'll recieve you,
the best dress a tramp like you could catch on that salary
with the length of the menu.

Maybe like a band aid or a clinic on the edge of the scab of this city
I will save you,
in the bedroom, on the pavement in the alley or the playground
from the blisters of pity.

Let's toss our bottles to the sky and act like we're aiming.
I haven't felt so helpless since that time I cut myself shaving
but my footsteps thirst for pathways in the chaos of these sidewalks,
chasing lipstick through a swarm of stencils for those outlines of chalk.

'Cause I don't speak with god unless he makes the first move.
I'd beg for better diction but I'm still praying for you.
I bet we both make it out of this one flawlessly intact,
I bet we both make it out alive, but I can't vouch for that.

Maybe I will love you, you're so pretty... and you're aging...

We'll walk by the sea counting beasts beneath the murky surf,
and when I think of my god I'll catch my glistening reflection in the ocean's great abyss
I'll dive in head first and chase my breath to the edge of the earth,
racing through the shipwrecks and abandoned cities to capture eternity's savage kiss.

My shadow, a treacherous bastard, he'll always be one stealthy step in between,
dragging my limbs to all my worst conceptions while I gaze at the bricks beneath my feet.
We'll sleep together dodging drafts of windy whispers that chill our troubled dreams.
Rest well you heart that seeks no equal, a tragic note buried under these boisterous beats.

Our careless footsteps paint the city a dirty coat of discontent
and our voiceless mascot watches over the alleyways, blistered and bitter,
he's wasted ages helplessly dangling about the throats of so many ruthless men
smudged with the filthy fingerprints of prayer to spare us life's last piercing splinter.

You caught the fickle fireflies that once danced so gracefully within my awkward chest.
The fresh breath that brought me back from that icy grave I had pursued for so long.
Oh the bliss we feign to exist in a fashion that permits us to love what we have left,
to butcher our mistakes with the distant grief we've salvaged through these simple songs.

And I'll revert to bartering my mortality with the waters I spent my days escaping,
waiting to be blessed with the appearance of a fabled maker who took my will to live.
With all the flaws in his favored sculptures it's no surprise we're so prone to breaking.
Much of my legend has been forgotten in the past, yet I've so much more I must forgive.

'Cause you've always been barely alive