JON:
When morning comes
Let’s forget it’s ever dark
You hold me close
We go walking through the park

Bright dove-tipped trees
Urban arteries in bloom
Spill human seed
Wafting westward like perfume

Through the city suites
Through all the city suites

* * *

JON:
Hey hey I’m blowing away
I love you but it’s me versus different chemicals
When they go strumming my veins
I’m laughing through my teeth, I’m a beaten animal

So with my hands in my pockets and my shoes untied
I go out to kiss the creator
We’re gonna talk talk talk
‘Til the thinking slows and I know, I know, I know…

We got his funeral grin
His baggy hospital eyes
I hope you’re riding the rails
As I go scraping the skies

And cut away from the crowd
For a familiar street
Where I’m becoming the man
I said I never would be

He’s leaning out of the frame
His face is twisted and wild
His blood is punishing me
I am forever a child

Watching my shadow recede
Into the darkening hall
My body’s running away
But I remember it all

I remember it all

The city’s quivering hope
Is shining out of our spines
I had a bucket of change
And drank a bottle of wine

Fuck man it’s great to be young
And sell your hunger for bread
Sister I’ve fallen in love
With something ugly and dead

I keep a picture of you
I couldn’t tell you the year
Sneaking some cake in your cheeks
The stillness brings me to tears

What hands have cradled the void
These hooks have swatted away
Black bile scours my heart
It’s just like dad used to say

“Don’t be so sensitive kid
This life will swallow you whole”
So I adopted a shame
Called what I couldn’t control

Still, it was easier then
Before I had to survive
When I would lie in my bed
Imagine mom was alive

I would envision a night
When I’d be perfect and free
With an invisible moon
An unpredictable sea

And everybody I saw
Someone I wanted to be
And each reciprocal glance
Would be a present to me

Now there’s a time and a place
I wish I couldn’t recall
I remember it all
I remember it all

If I need what I despise
If I curse what I create
If I cannot change this feeling
Feeling is fate

If the father could not love
If the mother could not hate
Then he’s always missing something
Something tells me that

By blade, by bullet, by flood or by flight
I’m gonna ditch this body in the city tonight
Because it’s never been mine
Because it’s never been mine

I said by blade, by bullet, by flood or by flight
I’m gonna ditch this body in the city tonight
Because it’s never been mine
No, no, no, no it’s never been mine

So I said nothing at all
Except a hypocrite’s prayer
Though you carry the map
Lara darling, don’t follow me here

He was a delicate dog
What a delicate dog

He sang:
Lara and myself, we were still inside
When our mother died…

I am cut loose
I am born again

I am cut loose
But I remember it all

* * *

JON:
I am the boy with the sinkhole eyes
And the crooked legs
Tripping into the bar

I wanna do what you’re thinking
I want to pour what you’re drinking
I want to know who you are

I wanna sit at your table
I want to sit at your table
I want to sit to the side

Who am I? Could he ever be on your side?

I’ve got the face of a soldier
My mother’s dad was a soldier
He died in a major war

For my Roman nose
And my blue, blue jeans
Brown hairs that defect like friends to the floor

I wanna sit at your table
I want to sit at your table
I want to sit to the side

Who am I? Could he ever be on your side?

She’s some kind of mannequin goddess
I don’t know a word that I’m saying
But it sounds like something important
Because she’s beautiful, I guess

She’s V-I-V-I-A-N-A

She’s taken note of my shoes
I’m carving deer on the wall
She says What are you called
I tell her Jon with no H

Then she parts her lips just ever so slightly
Thumbs in my pockets

She’s making light of the time
I’m going out of my clothes
When I whisper the words
That you never should say

Did you know that my dad is the guy on TV?
Do you want to hear some poetry?

Bright dove-tipped trees
Urban arteries in bloom
Spill human seed
And I want to spill some too...

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus
Who for the joy set before him endured the cross
Put on that strawberry gloss
It’s my favorite distraction

She’s some kind of mannequin goddess
I don’t know a word that I’m saying
But it sounds like something important
Because she’s beautiful, I guess

She’s V-I-V-I-A-N-A

Here’s something new to remember
A burning letter held our bodies aloft
We were soft as doves

I had to sit at your table
I used to sit at your table
You smiled and you took me to your city suite

* * *

JON:
Now I’m in love with it all
But she remembers it all

LARA:
As he was tearing away
He hollered it was him versus different chemicals
So I had nothing to say
I chased him through the streets like a cheated criminal

So now it’s so long stranger, will I see you again
I bent down and cursed the creator
I’ll take your hindsight love
It’s the only kind that I know, I know, I know…

Spare me your lullabies
I’ll set fire to your pillows, blacken your billows
And rise from your city suite
In the guise of a pigeon, dumb with derision above

But I’ll be thinking of you
My twin, my kind
Take your time

Make all the memories you need
Be young, go blind
Take your time

I’ll be alright on my own
Yes Jon, just fine
Take your time

I’ll be alright on my own
Yes Jon, just fine
Take your time

And sing:
“Lara and myself we were still inside
When our mother died”

So our mother died!

I am cut loose
I am born again

I am cut loose
But I remember it all

I am cut loose
Singing, “Lara and myself were still inside
When our mother died”

I am cut loose

* * *

JON:
When morning comes
Let’s forget it’s ever dark
You hold me close
We go walking through the park