1. |
Alex Jessmore
03:01
|
|||
|
When I was a boy, I was seven foot two, and my peers all made fun of me throughout high school. Well, I forgot all them, but I can’t forget you. Although sometimes I think I would like to.
And I try to sleep but you’re stuck in my head, as my legs dangle over the end of my bed. I wish things didn’t change. Oh, I wish you weren’t dead. I wish the Lord would have took me instead because:
Oh, God knows, nothing here changes. Nothing here grows. Except for the cemetery down by the railroad track.
A kid throws a slushy, it runs through my hair. I used to get angry, but now I don’t care. Because God knows we’ve all got our crosses to bear. I hope someday that I can meet you there.
And now, I am grown, about thirty or so. And the woman I love lies beneath winter snow. But, the second it thaws out, I promise I’ll go meet you with flowers and romantic poems because:
Oh, God knows, nothing here changes. Nothing here grows. Except for the cemetery down by the railroad track.
|
||||
2. |
Leaving Dave
03:00
|
|||
|
Darling of mine, please start to notice my thoroughly exasperated sighs when you start to discuss Palahniuk. After six months, I’ve had enough.
And baby, please, can you cook something besides Kraft Macaroni and Cheese? Every now and then is cool with me, but not every night of the week.
So when you turn off the lights, leave the porch light on, because by the time the day breaks I’ll be gone, my dear. I don’t know what I’m doing here.
And when I’m falling asleep in your passenger seat, for the love of Christ, Dave, just let me fall asleep. I don’t care about Rimbaud’s poetry.
Oh, I think I have found a force stronger than entropy.
Baby please, I really don’t want to be the only one here who cleans. I wish you’d return the favor please, at least a couple times a week.
“Serenity now,” I tell myself when you begin to expound on Rick and Morty. Can’t you see that I’m screaming internally?
Intimacy can be exhausting for somebody like me. But, I think that we are meant to be like ice cream cones and hot concrete.
So when you turn off the lights, leave the porch light on, because by the time the day breaks I’ll be gone, my dear. I don’t know what I’m doing here.
And when I’m falling asleep in your passenger seat, for the love of Christ, Dave, just let me fall asleep. I don’t care about how:
“Actually, this isn’t a vape, it’s a JUUL. And I’m not surprised you decided to comment on it, since it’s design evokes a curiosity that is endemic to the human species, best represented by the monolith in Stanley Kubrick’s opus 2001-“
Oh, I think I have found a force stronger than entropy.
Oh, I think I have found a force stronger than entropy.
|
||||
3. |
Stratford Knockings
04:27
|
|||
|
I was the only one who cared the day you died. And when I woke up in the morning and saw the shape that it was forming, I no longer wanted to be alive.
Where are you now?
I look for you.
Oh, I’ve unraveled every clue.
And I can’t believe that you are gone to stay.
So I searched the yellow pages. I found a medium, and arranged a séance where I swear I spoke to you. And I got to say those words that I could never say before, but I did not foresee what would come through.
Because now there’s something dark in this house. I see mysterious shadows of people I don’t know. I come home and find the chairs rearranged, and see mysterious bloodstains on the kitchen table. Now doors slam in the middle of the night and, each time the clock strikes five, the walls start to ooze green slime.
And when the thing that I invited in tries to strangle me in bed, I know it’s just because I was once in love.
And the death that stalks this place can’t take that away.
|
||||
4. |
Breaking Up the Band
03:04
|
|||
|
I am breaking up the band.
I know that it sucks man, but we’ll never tour Japan. Honestly, man, all of my lines in the sand have been crossed two or three handfuls of times. I wanna make it rhyme, because I am breaking up the band.
Like Dave Grohl and Kurt Cobain
All the holes inside my brain
we drank until we went insane.
We had so much fun. We took too many drugs to see or to play.
(Shut up!)
We’re never getting invited back to Mass Bay ever again after that set we played.
So, I am breaking up the band.
I’m sorry that I crashed our van south of Detroit, but that’s besides the point.
Because I am breaking up the band.
It took too many years off of my life like a big kitchen knife inside my soul. I’m quitting rock and roll but first I am...
Like Fleetwood Mac, or Genesis, Destiny’s Child, or the Smiths, if none of those bands had practiced and never made it anywhere at all.
|
||||
5. |
||||
|
And now, an excerpt from my Bildungsroman:
I feel that I have done it all. I listen to Tool and Muse. I watch every episode of Rick and Morty and I take my own copious notes. I have watched many an opera without the subtitles. Certainly, a man of my caliber should not need to know a word of Italian to understand such a great work of art.
They resonate. The very moment that my eyes alight on such a work so truly transcendent, it is a connection stronger than gravity.
And I felt that connection with you.
And now, as gravity has been made irrelevant by the recent discoveries of quantum mechanics, so too have I been left adrift in a sea of quarks and neurozoinks.
(Shut up!)
|
||||
6. |
Dear William
03:46
|
|||
|
We were sixteen. We were young. And I remember you always shot frogs with your BB gun. But, nobody ever knew that you were sweet.
Like fresh concrete
Like the way it feels under my bare feet
And I remember how I felt back then:
Doo wop, I think I like you lots.
Doo wop, I think I like you.
And late at night I lie awake in bed, and I think that some things are best left unsaid. And I listen to that train roll by, and I think about how nothing around here ever really changes.
Like the soft hum in the Summer from the power lines
Or your father’s rage
Doo wop, I think I like you lots.
Doo wop, I think I like you.
And I know your married now, and I hope that she’s treating you right. You know, neither of us are ever going to be happy, but that’s fine.
Because it was really nothing.
Doo wop, I think I like you lots.
Doo wop, I think I like you.
|
||||
7. |
||||
|
This one’s for you.
It didn’t turn out the way that I wanted it to.
That’s OK with me if that’s OK with you.
The words are all lousy, the chords don’t fit the song,
the melody’s weak, the rhymes are all incorrect.
Maybe that’s as good as it gets.
Because the truth of the matter is that life isn’t fun.
And you wake up one morning, and you find yourself stuck.
So where’s the sense in doing it alone?
Anyways, here’s the chorus:
Last night I drove home in the rain.
I think I’ll always feel this way.
The streetlights that line this old town,
they cut the budget, they don’t work now.
I go to work, I come home drunk,
I swear to God I will grow up.
I know that I’m not good enough.
That’s OK, that makes two of us.
I didn’t mean to insult you with that last line.
I’m just saying neither of us can reasonably by expected to be Jesus Christ. All we have to be is fine, and carve out a little place for ourselves that feels alright in a world filled up with stupid things.
I’m really digging my own grave here,
I’m just trying to say:
“Would you like a goddamn wedding ring?”
Last night I drove home in the rain.
I think I’ll always feel this way.
The streetlights that line this old town,
they cut the budget, they don’t work now.
I go to work, I come home drunk,
I swear to God I will grow up.
I know that I’m not good enough.
That’s OK, that makes two of us.
|
||||
8. |
Resigning from the RNC
02:40
|
|||
|
I lay awake in bed last night, and traced the contours of my life. And, honestly, I feel like sick about my present involvement. When I was young, I’d hate the man that I’ve become. I believed in God, I believed in love, I believed in universal suffrage from this.
I quit!
I quit!
The chair gave me a call real late, she said: “You’re making a mistake.” Look, man, I know that it’s too late to back choices that I’ve made. But already, beneath my feet, I feel the sand on a distant beach. And it’s the first time that I’ve felt anything worth feeling in a long time.
I quit!
I quit!
Throw the key out.
Close the door.
Sayonara.
Au revoir.
And on your banner, in big red print:
666
I quit!
I quit!
|
||||
dearest hearts Worcester, Massachusetts
Utterly without redeeming social importance.
dearest hearts recommends:
If you like dearest hearts, you may also like:
Someone Else's Eden
by Rory Strong
supported by 8 fans who also own “Dear William”
If it gets any better than this, I don't care to find out.
go to album
The latest from acclaimed country musician Bonnie Montgomery delivers the raw, rustic sound for which she’s known.
go to album
