-Jason Isbell

I am not a huge fan of country music, and not many songs could you find anything even teetering on the edge of depth in modern country. But this guy...this guy will not only pull your heart strings, he will chew them to tiny pieces and glue them back together with rubber cement. Then he will let you have them to use again, only never to be the same as before.

"John was a Baptist.

He feared the world could end at any time.

You and I are charged with this, to hold the essence of a kiss

To take these broken plans and make them rhyme."

In our chaos and regret

Let us not forget we will one day

Come undone

I will feel your tired fingers one last time

My forever never ending words will hush

This rhythmic dance will break to the night

Linger in the sweat of

Our breath

Let it surround you

Gather all the pieces

These are yours

Make them whole and see them before you

In a short while

They will have never been

They will crumble

And your glitter will reside

Your flame will fall away

With the glint in your eye

Our chaos, it will cease

It will die

With our puzzle, it is swept away

Into a box

And in our box with our puzzle

Here we will be no longer

If I could have talked to him one last time, I think I'd have started off as pathetic as I was a year ago...

Baby, were all the lies they told us all true?

They were the lies you told yourself - the ones I told you, maybe a few.

I don't know what to do...

Don't expect me to carry you.

I don't know

                    how to stop this time...

Just take your fucking hand out of mine.

Maybe all the dreams I had were

             Never real...

Delusions, from the start. You painted me as your ideal.

I don't know what... to...feel ....inside.

Let me guess, 

                    no one held you when you cried?

Day slowly turning into night

Dramatic, as usual. You should love someone because, not despite.

I'm just waiting on the wild sun.

And that light isn't me - 

                                You always knew I wasn't the one.

Italics - "Wild Sun" by the Strumbellas

"If I lay here

If I just lay here

Would you lie with me 

and just forget the world?"

A genuine question.

An unanswered one too.

I just want to know before I go in too deep.

I am alone most of the time.

I try not to think about it.

But that makes it hurt so much more.

Because I start to think of the days that I was not alone.

The days where I was in someone's arms.

The days that I felt lighter than the clouds we stared at for hours on end.

I miss those days.

I miss that feeling.

I miss it all, every single day.

So please answer the question.

Because I don't know who to depend on anymore.

But it would help to have someone to lay down with me.

And It would help to forget the world.

Will you answer the question?

I didn’t want you to leave, I wasn’t ready for you to leave, so I made sure that you didn’t.

I kept you hidden in my closet, your presence mingling with others that have tried leaving me in the past. Giving all of you the chance to bond over the fact that for whatever reason, I just wasn’t good enough for you.

All of the experiences I had with you sit in that box in the closet, something for me to go back to when I’m old and have lived more of my life. Then, when I’m ready, I can pull out all those boxes out in my old age and smile at all the jokes and memories we made together. Truly appreciate all the experiences and people that have shaped me.

But for now, I push you out of my sight, out of mind, because I’m not ready for that yet. For now, all I can do is close the closet door and hope for the best.

Inspired by:

“We will grow old as friends/ I’ve promised that before/So what’s one more/In our grey-haired circle/Waiting for the end”

-Dodie Clark “Sick of Losing Soulmates”

I worked all morning to find you. I devoted the sunrise to climbing up, hidden in the woods, until the forest opened into a meadow littered with fall leaves. From there, the trail rose steeply to the alpine above speckled with snow. Up and up I went, and finally I was high on the ridge, following a network of goat and human trails, exactly the place I spend my time dreaming of when I’m not there. I looked ahead, to the east, and I was lost in the lakes, and the shapes that your body makes.

My eyes lingered on the pools of water in the valleys below, and I glanced back, westward, to see what I had left behind. There was the meadow, the forest leading back down to the channel, and mountains across the water traversing north. I closed my eyes and listened, and the mountains said I will find you here, they whispered the snow and the leaves in my ear.

I moved forward, and I traced my finger along your trails, your body was the map, I was lost in it. I could stay with you here forever, falling over your rocky spine, the glaciers made you and now you’re mine. I could stay with you here forever, but they told me to be careful up there, where the wind rages through your hair. 

Reluctantly, I pulled myself away and forced myself not to listen to the mountains, and to heed their warnings. I descended through the meadow, my heart breaking a little as it always does, and I wandered back down through the trees, finally reaching the channel. I knew better than to look back, but I needed one more moment with you. 

*inspired by Rocky Spine, Great Lake Swimmers* 

"Under our breath "We whisper. A senseless thought or two. "Under my breath" i whisper much more than most of you. Under my breath. I whisper. Under my breath can't say. As loud as wish. This bitch. Just go away . Will be the death. I whisper. Scream for her death can't ring. As loud as need ring true. Plant seed will be the death of you.

Under my breath. I whisper. Under my breath. I say. Under your test. Dismay,disgust,distaste for all of you.

Out of my breath. Out of my breath! I say. Out of breath. Not in good health have felt to many days. It's not your fault. You at the side of me. Is it your fault? Cant take the sight of me....inside of me. Exciting me.

Incite in me...... Si! Lent! Rage! Lyes in cage! Violent plays! of ways you'll die. Consumed am I. Help find my breath. The death of you..

Who?I whispered too the faceless beast. You. I whisper to. Here at your feet. Carelessly coughing thru entire speech. Killing me to speak. And still I do...

But this path that I'm taking, I'm lost in a deep end.

I'm scared.

 Of my breaths that lead my downfall.

 Of my tongue that ate the dirt as I crawl.

 Of my hands that murdered a single soul.

I'm scared.

 Of the monster running behind me,

 Of the demons trying to be free,

 Of the shadows lurking to see.

I'm scared.

 Of it's footsteps as I hid in my place.

 Of it's breath that warms the air near my face.

 Of it's eyes that lit up in a grimace.

I'm scared.

 Of a bell that rung a thousand times longer.

 Of a drastic shout to save my soul as I linger.

 Of a word after game that says... it's over.

(It's kind of vague but the setting's kind of the Minotaur thing.)

If I'd thought about it I never would've done it

I guess I would've let it slide

If I'd-a paid attention to what others were thinkin'

The heart inside me would've died

But I was just too stubborn to ever be governed by enforced insanity

Someone had to reach for the risin' star

I guess it was up to me

- Bob Dylan "Up to Me."

Bob Dylan wrote this song for his Blood on the Tracks album. Its easy to see where he is going with these words but to me this has a deeper meaning than to what he is alluding to.

I am in the midst of a career crisis where I am very underemployed, underused and definitely at a loss for a challenge.

I have been in sales for the past 14 years and before that used my people skills to help increase the sales in my family business.

I am at a crossroads where my choices are truly limited.

I am in pain as I wait for a sign from anywhere...

When I hear this song and the words are sung it touches a cord within me that I need to follow my own path - time is running out for me and I must stay true to me.

No one else can truly understand - I guess its gonna be up to me.

After careful inspection of more apparitions than all the live and in living color obsessions within the mud and the slime, the collective corals built up for...ever on the first vertical reef under the surface; mmm some Unknown Brooklyn pumped through myyhelmet and bandmmask ..“Iii_can’t_ getalong”.. - as if unveiling via carving, an answer to the blight, an ancient protrusion, a silicone pustule in the mushy walls; and visions of civilizations, Atlantis; caught my attention - when suddenly, a lifter on one of my hydraulics clicked, one mile below...and there, glowing, the opening, Utopia telescope into view and phoom!! shhhhhhhhizz whip, c-cuts me particles apart, so previous. Instincts turned inside out in quick reactions to break, shuddering away into, but further onto, upon the whole true reason of the traditional we were meant to be; as we just knew we were; and so000 wanted to be thee- reason. Yes! But how rearranged through the power struggle, that allegorical island secret chambers bending between us through clicking that tan-button -pressed immediately- wire/reverse-back-through the soft blasting tunnel in a twisted whorl spinning sickly beside itself..toward the surface. Yet, with a greater disappointment than ever; as if moving toward the sun was digressing..as if raising the ‘Island of Atlas’ simultaneous and synchronous with the grand #[uhtss-]_nfeelalright_Ifeelalright_Ifeelalri-ight ... caused this cog in a hub and spoke configuration -boy howdy- to turn a very essential piece constructed in the whole rotting cauliflower stain glass mural or wall/barrier/missing puzzle section Mmm to well just capture pure in the reverberations underneath the surface only/just what make us wonderful.. Then I realized .... It’s time to be great. Together. Or maybe it’s just me. Anyways, into place, where the baneful Atlantis now become peaceful, this boring- yes! Goddamn yes! little wick crowded within, massive varied views sucking and blending around the edges of the tiny world, remix the small counter and subversive truths... stealing from themselves what they had said- soooooh suffering splits decisively ..to give up. Then; that’s when, pressed against, the button, hydraulic prolific extension pushed into a little electric tube, slip, the surmising uprise of the paradise... half-attentive and half expecting some booty traps to dismiss the whole unveiling insignificance #andthat’show_I_can_getalong – But, there it comes? Goes? Went? Either way; whichever; it is here or its inextricably not. Reentering the murky circumstances and contemplation, that vast melting, thawing, burning up, mutating, or ole mmmmixing soooo damn radically digging, this telescopic view of the You know panicked fear and excitement bringing through hell and back! I know it exists- thee - ALL thee figurines and the expectations, the heroes now all fighting through disambiguation and figures in the underground tunnel to the dark side of the--- Hmm… quite possibly all thee perpetually ancient fiction is very very real #andthat’show_Iiii_caaaaan_getalong… We waited until that view align with the faces behind us> We reclaimed the rrrriddled around structuring into the laws today. They are not for us or to govern us, but to govern the past... And the invincible character and the bright ignorance, we overcast a story we tell.. We becomes another myth you cannot live within without.. as that Great Island surfaced there, changed, separations by chance, better yet, moreover like- Gasp! blasted back out and above the ocean Oh Holy Lord.. in such surprising beauty and wonder but pique and marveled with all the possibilities of its glory and fantastic surge against the blackhole elimination (of everything....) against the intentions to suck it all back through the hole/portal, the vacuum in/under the water/grade.... the contaminated contained button buried somewhere in the deep thinking that it’s all tooo too large to make a difference within; to make it…. And Within one... [I’m the one, fuckyea] brief instance, knew, sooooo know, believed that universal, accidental, monumental significantly tripped assuming reach to the other side of the pillows (and in that kind of momentum maintained the perspective, feeling forever, and advanced it up through the waters trudging; that wondrous Moon-free fall lightness of being and of feeling telekinetically lifting it and #listeningtowhatyourmadeof

Unknown Brooklyn – Shannon Yarbrough, Colin Brooks

#songstory

@PhynneBelle

thanks!!

My taste in music is your face

A million love ballads

A thousand happy songs

What has happened to me?

My heavy metal rock?

My god damn emo anthems?

They've all been washed away

Cause they were tearing me to pieces

Like bad glue

On a get well card

Because I think I've fallen for you

Your smile brings to me memories

Of hours spent

Hands on a violin

Your eyes resplendent

Kinder than I could ever be

Remind me of simple summer songs

My taste in music is your face

For words cannot describe how

Much I love you