little bird i invite you, build your nest
little bird, i've got branches above my head
sway with me aimlessly, walk over mountains high
find winter nights with me, hang in your hammock high over me and over flight and all fright to me
pick up your hands and become reindeers or maybe a storm
be pleasant be glassy be born
go ahead be the bird in my horns
One broken wing,
Soaring and suffering,
Arm in a sling,
I don't owe you anything.
I'm a bad absentee,
You know when I want to leave.
So close up your knees,
And I'll close your parentheses.
I'm a bad amputee,
With no phantom memory.
So close up your knees,
Stuck to a growing black balloon
My neighbors are slowly glowing maroon
Don't throw away my broken telescopes
If I never get back home
There's no garden overgrown,
No widows in the walls,
No widows left alone
No shirts to hang or fold
No kid out in the cold,
No widows on the walls,
No windows on the phone
If I'm stuck out here alone
If I'm stranded here all year
With just nothing left at home
No widows disappear
If the wheels jump off the road
There's no here to know
There's no perfect love above
No punishment below
When they shake, say the wings won't break.
I can't sleep in the waiting room
I can't sleep in the waiting room
I can't sleep in the waiting room
I can't sleep in the waiting room
I can't find the keys that open those doors
that let me on the stairs
and onto the roof
where there's actually air
and room to swing my fists
and my ears stop ringing
I can hear everything
I can't stand on only one leg
I can't stand on only one leg
I can't stand on only one leg
I wish that i had known in
that first minute we met,
the unpayable debt
that i owed you.
'Cause you'd been abused
by the bone that refused
you and you hired me
to make up for that.
And walking in that room
when you had tubes in your arms,
those singing morphine alarms
out of tune.
They had you sleeping and eating and
and i didn't believe them
when they called you a hurricane thunderclap.
When i was checking vitals
i suggested a smile.
You didn't talk for a while.
You were freezing.
You said you hated my tone.
It made you feel so alone
so you told me i had to be leaving
But something kept me standing
by that hospital bed.
I should have quit but instead
i took care of you.
You made me sleep and uneven
and i didn't believe that
when they told me that there
You got cold in the snow,
And i just want to go home,
I thought the stars were inside,
But i kept them hidden, i tried,
But they kept screaming for release,
You picked me up from my feet,
And brought me up though solid piece,
And told me you can't stay for long.
I woke up without arms,
I stood up without arms,
I couldn't walk in your direction,
With all this static reflection.
I was lost inside a map,
That id written in a nap,
When i heard a voice when branchs snapped,
I followed it home.
Completely awake in the back of the car
I don't drift anymore
All's come into place
And I unlock the door
If you have to warm up you can go back inside
But I'm not gonna follow forward
I've come to prefer
Sleeping outdoors
Upstairs and downstairs
And outside on the roof
Small stars and steel bars
Say the ghosts up in the attic tell the truth
Standing on shingles at night
Can't you see that there's a reason?
The plans aren't on the ground
They're high and hanging down
Well once I remember the words
We can climb down from the rooftop
I swear that I heard it right here
Invasively clear
But I was upstairs and downstairs
And outside on the roof
Small stars and steel bars
Verse 1
You wanna climb up the stairs, I wanna push you back down
But I left you inside, So you can push me around
If I leave before you, Then I walk out alone
Keep your hands on your side, When you follow me home
Chorus
I don't want love x2
Verse 2
Wake up without?
You stumble home
I should of none they were walls
We slept in our cars?
So if I see you again
Desperate and stoned
Keep your prison locked up
And I will leave my gun at home
Chorus
So loud,
So loud,
Slow down,
Slow hound
They wanna conquer you
Abandon you
I want to burden you
Belong to you
So loud,
So loud,
Slow down,
Slow hound
They want to think for you
Pour drinks into you
They want look at you
While I look everywhere for you
So loud,
So loud,
Slow down,
Slow hound
I want to sever you
Defend against you
I want to speak for you
Every time we speak
You are spitting in my mouth
If I don't take you somewhere else
I'm gonna pull my teeth right out
Every time we meet
You are shrieking in my ear
If I don't take you somewhere else
You're gonna make this insincere
Come on
Everyone I've loved
Kept me tangled in my heart
You'll tie that knot a bit too loose
Not enough to tease apart heart
Come on
Everyone I hold
Holds me strangled sweet and small
I'm not a puppy you'll take home
You've living awhile in the front of my skull, making orders.
You've been writing me rules, shrinking maps, and redrawing borders.
I've been repeating your speeches, but the audience just doesn't follow.
Because I'm leaving out words, punctuation, and it sounds pretty hollow.
I've been living in bed because now you tell me to sleep.
I've been hiding my voice and my face, and you decide when I eat.
In your dreams I'm a criminal, horrible, sleeping around.
While your awake I'm impossible, constantly letting you down.
Little porcelain figurines, glass bullets you shoot at the wall.
Threats of castration for crimes you imagine when I miss your call.
With the bite of the teeth of that ring on my finger,
I'm bound to your bedside, your eulogy singer.
I'd happily take all those bullets inside you and put them inside of myself.
"Someone, oh anyone, tell me how to stop this.
She's screaming, expiring, and I'm her only witness.
I'm freezing, infected, and rigid in that room inside her.
There's a bear inside your stomach.
The cub's been kicking from within.
He's loud, though without vocal chords
We'll put an end to him.
We'll make all the right appointments.
No one ever has to know.
And then tomorrow I'll turn 21.
We'll script another show.
We'll play charades up in the Chelsea.
Drink champagne although you shouldn't be.
We'll be blind and dumb until we fall asleep.
None of our friends will come.
They dodge our calls.
And they have for quite awhile now.
It's not a shock.
You don't seem to mind and I just can't see how.
We're too old.
We're not old, old at all.
Just too old.
We're not old, old at all.
There's a bear inside your stomach.
The cub's been kicking you for weeks.
And if this isn't all a dream.
Well then we'll cut him from beneath.
Well we're not scared of making caves.
Or finding food for him to eat.
We're terrified of one another.
And terrified of what that means.
But we'll make only quick decisions.
And you'll just keep me in the waiting room.
And all the while i'll know we're fucked.
And not getting unfucked soon.
When we get home we're bigger strangers than we've ever been before.
You sit in front of snowy television, suitcase on the floor.
We're too old.
We're not old, old at all.
Just too old.
We're not old, old at all.
Just too old.
We're not old, old at all.
Just too old.
We're not old, old at all.
Just too old.
We're not old, old at all.
Just too old.
Prove to me I'm not gonna die alone.
Put your arm around my collarbone
And open the door.
Don't lie to me
If you're putting the dog to sleep.
That pet you just couldn't keep, and couldn't afford.
Well prove to me I'm not gonna die alone.
Unstitch that (shit?) I've sewn to close up the hole that tore through my skin.
Well my trust in you is a dog with a broken leg...
Tendons too torn to beg for you to let me back in.
You said I can't prove to you you're not gonna die alone.
But trust me to take you home to clean up that blood all over your palms.
You can't keep running out kicking yourself off the bed.
Kicking yourself in the head. Because you're kicking me too.
Put your trust in me, I'm not gonna die alone(2x)
I don't think so.
Put your trust in me, I'm not gonna die alone(2x)
Zelda, you asked me to wake you
If I woke up before you
And you were still stuck inside
I'm here to tell you
We're not awake, yet
Zelda, you look between two worlds
A tunnel with two ends
Pitch black in the middle
Like a train
Zelda, it's just not important
The small things we suffer
It's in an ocean
Suddenly every machine stop at once,
and the monitors beeped the last time.
Hundreds of thousands of hospital beds,
and all of them empty but mine.
Well, I was lying down with my feet in the air,
completely unable to move.
The bed was misshaped, and awkward and tall,
and clearly intended for you.
You checked yourself out when you put me to bed,
and tore that old band off your wrist.
But you came back to see me for a minute or less,
and left me your ring in my fist.
My hair started growing, my face became yours,
my femur was breaking in half.
The sensation was scissors and too much to scream,
so instead, I just started to laugh.
Suddenly every machine stop at once,
and the monitors beeped the last time.
Hundreds of thousands of hospital beds,
Rolled together with a burning paper heart.
Rolled together with a burning paper heart.
Rolled together with a burning paper heart.
Rolled together with a burning paper heart.
Pulled together but about to burst apart,
Rolled together with a burning paper heart.
Pulled together but about to burst apart,
Rolled together with a burning paper heart.
Pulled together but about to burst apart,
Rolled together with a burning paper heart.
Pulled together but about to burst apart,
With the door closed, shades dawn, the world shrinks.
Let's open up those blinds.
But someone has to sweep the floor, pick up her dirty clothes.
That job's not mine.
Now that everyone's an enemy, my heart sinks.
Let's put away those claws.
I don't blame them for their curtain-calls because I pulled the rope.
I wanna call them back out for appaluse.
Spring and Thompson on the first of May is horrible.
We hid in the catacombs.
So now I'm sleeping next to mousetraps, in a bed of all our clothes,
while I hope that she won't come home.
It was easier to lock the doors and kill the phones
than to show my skin,
because the hardest thing is never to repent for someone else,
it's letting people in.
Well you can come inside, unlock the doors, take off your shoes.
But this might take all night,
to explain to you I would have walked out those sliding doors,
but the timing never seemed right.
When your helicopter came and tried to lift me out,
I put its rope around my neck.
And after that you didn't bother with the airlift or the rescue
- you knew just what to expect.
That with the door closed, shades drawn, we're dead enough.
They don't open from outside.
And someone has to speak with their teeth behind their tongue,
to never let that right be denied.
We can't rely on photographs and visitation time,
but I just don't know where to begin.
I wanna bust down the door, if you're willing to forgive.
I've got the keys,
I'm letting people in.
Don't be scared to speak,
don't speak with someone's tooth,
don't bargain when you're weak,
don't take that sharp abuse.
Some patients can't be saved,
but that burden's not on you.
In the middle of the night I was sleeping sitting up,
when a doctor came to tell me, "Enough is enough."
He brought me out into the hall (I could have sworn it was haunted),
and told me something that I didn't know that I wanted to hear:
That there was nothing that I could do to save you,
the choir's gonna sing, and this thing is gonna kill you.
Something in my throat made my next words shake,
and something in the wires made the lightbulbs break.
There was glass inside my feet and raining down from the ceiling,
it opened up the scars that had just finished healing.
It tore apart the canyon running down your femur,
(I thougth that it was beautiful, it made me a believer.)
And as it opened I could hear you howling from your room,
but I hid out in the hall until the hurricane blew.
When I reappered and tried to give you something for the pain,
you came to hating me again and just sang your refreain:
You had a new dream, it was more like a nightmare.
You were just a little kid, and they cut your hair,
then they stuck you in machines, you came so close to dying.
They should have listened, they thought that you were lying.
Daddy was an asshole, he fucked you up, built the gears in your head,
now he greases them up. And no one paid attention when you just stopped eating. "Eighty-seven pounds!" and this all bears repeating.
Tell me when you think that we became so unhappy,
wearing silver rings with nobody clapping.
When we moved here togehter we were so dissappointed,
sleeping out of tune with our dreams disjointed.
It killed me to see you getting always rejected,
but I didn't mind the things you threw, the phones I deflected.
I didn't mind you blaming me for your mistakes,
I just held you in the doorframe through all of the earthquakes.
But you packed up your clothes in that bag every night,
and I would try to grab your ankles (what a pitiful sight.)
But after over a year, I stopped trying to stop you from stomping out that door,
coming back like you always do. Well no one's gonna fix it for us, no one can.
You say that, 'No one's gonna listen, and no one understands.'
So there's no open doors and there's no way to get through,
there's no other witnesses, just us two.
There's two people living in one small room,
from your two half-families tearing at you,
two ways to tell the story (no one worries),
two silver rings on our fingers in a hurry,
two people talking inside your brain,
two people believing that I'm the one to blame,
two different voices coming out of your mouth,
while I'm too cold to care and too sick to shout.
You had a new dream, it was more like a nightmare.
You were just a little kid, and they cut your hair,
then they stuck you in machines, you came so close to dying.
They should have listened, they thought that you were lying.
Daddy was an asshole, he fucked you up, built the gears in your head,
"Pull me out... pull me out...
can't you stop this all from happening?
Close the doors and keep them out."
"Dig me out... Oh, dig me out...
couldn't you have kept this all from happening?
It's been a long time coming
It's not up for debate
You've been a hollowed-out apple
Though you're standing up straight
It's later than you think
And we're not gonna wait
If you continue to tell us if you continue to tell us
"The Universe Is Going To Catch You."
Well it was fine until you fell off
Of the face of the Earth
'Cause we would call you at home
And noone picked up the phone
But we were worried that you'd fallen
In the river, or worse
But then you sent us back a letter it said in capital letters
"THE UNIVERSE IS GOING TO CATCH YOU."
Come back inside
To this house
To your home
Made of steel-structured styrofoam
Nobody's out there
But someone is singing you back to your birthplace
That voice is the same voice
You heard on the same night that
Everything glowed
Took you into the air
And the arms of the Universe
Kept you from falling
But after that happened
Those arms did not come back
So when you leapt up
And nobody caught you
Please, curtains in.
Start us off, you swing first.
Sorry.
I don't know what I said,
but you're crying now again,
and that only makes it worse.
Let me do my job.
Let me do my job.
Sylvia, get your head out of the oven.
Go back to screaming and cursing,
remind me again how everyone betrayed you.
Sylvia, get your head out of the covers.
Let me take your temperature,
you can throw the thermometer back at me,
if that's what you want to do, okay?
Please, please calm down.
Steady out, I'm terrified.
Sorry.
I want us to ally,
but you swing on little knives.
They're only sharp on one side.
Let me do my job.
Let me do my job.
Sylvia, get your head out of the oven.
Go back to screaming and cursing,
remind me again how everyone betrayed you.
Sylvia, get your head out of the covers.
Let me take your temperature,
you can throw the thermometer back at me,
if that's what you want to do, okay?
Sylvia, can't you see what you are doing?
Can't you see I'm scared to speak,
and i hate my voice 'cause it only makes you angry
Sylvia, i only talk when you are sleeping
That's when i tell you everything
I decided on that evening that I was through with sitting still
I stood up and started moving with a childlike fascination
For those doors that don't have locks
And the stairways that were blocked
So I dug through the obstruction
Put my fist around the railing
And each step was far apart
And far away from steps before it
And the air was getting thinner
Til I couldn't breathe at all
And if I happened to look behind me
There were miles and miles of stairs
Enough so I couldn't see the doorway
But I knew that it was there
And on the last step I was dizzy
'Cause there were stairs in all directions
But I found another door
And through the door there was the attic
Without old clothes
Without a ceiling
Everything had opened wide
Into the jaws of something bigger
And suddenly I saw that I was
Upstairs and outside and freezing on the roof
Finally it had found me
The answer, the feeling, and the truth:
That I'm small
That I'm small
That I'm small
One bad night I'll hold the glass until the glass can hold me down
And one bad night I'll spill and spill until my feet begin to drown
And one bad night I'll hear you calling to help you not pass out
You and I divine but not devout
Every night my teeth are falling out
Try, try, try, try, try, try, try to gain control of the floor
Try, try, try, try, try, try, try to gain control of the floor
One dumb night I'll make a point to take an verboten route
One dumb night I'll take you out to the bar we both blacked out
One dumb night to bad two decisions don't divide to cancel out
You and I divorced but not devout
Every night my teeth are falling out
Every night my teeth are falling out
Try, try, try, try, try, try, try to gain control of the floor
Try, try, try, try, try, try, try to gain control of the floor
Try, try, try, try, try, try, try to gain control of the floor
Try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try,
Try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try to gain control
Of the floor
Try, try, try, try, try, try, try to gain control of the floor
In a nightmare, I am falling from the ceiling into bed beside you.
You're asleep, I'm screaming, shoving you to try to wake you up.
And like before, you've got no interest in the life you live when you're awake.
Your dreams still follows storylines, like fictions you would make.
So I lie down against your back, until we're both back in the hospital.
But now it's not a cancer ward, we're sleeping in the morgue.
Men and women in blue and white, they are singing all around you,
with heavy shovels holding earth. You're being buried to the neck.
In that hospital bed, being buried quite alive now.
I'm trying to dig you out but all you want is to be buried there together.
You're screaming and cursing,
and angry, and hurting me,
and then smiling, and crying, apologizing.
I've woken up, I'm in our bed, but there's no breathing body there beside me.
Someone must have taken you while I was stuck asleep.
But I know better as my eyes adjust.
You've been gone for quite awhile now,
and don't work there in the hospital (they had to let me go.)
When I try to move my arms sometimes, they weigh too much to lift.
I think you buried me awake (my one and only parting gift.)
But you return to me at night, just when I think I may have fallen asleep.
Your face is up against mine, and I'm too terrified to speak.
You're screaming and cursing,
and angry, and hurting me,
Waking up, I'm not awake
The planet drowns in a hundred days
Dissolving into a million pieces in a billion places
A million pieces in a billion places
A million pieces in a billion places
Slow it down, wait it out
"We can't run, but we can go swimming"
Diving in late at night, we come together
Dissolving into a million pieces in a billion places
A million pieces in a billion places
Bathe in the dark for me
Wait 'til you hear my feet
Through and through
They want to walk all over you
Gone where they can't follow
Bathe underwater with me
Swim 'til you're half asleep
Through and through
They want to sink and maroon you
Put on your bag, take me
Closer to trawl, but much, much further
Through and through
I'm the ocean under you
Put on your bag, take me
Closer to trawl, but much, much further
Closer to trawl, but much, much further
Closer to trawl, but much, much further
Closer to trawl, but much, much further
By the time that we woke up
We couldn't stop the sparks
We couldn't see outside
When the curtains fell apart
We couldn't hear books
When the pages curled away
We should shut that window we both left open now
We lost our chance to run
Now the door's too hot to touch
See the light electrons caught in your fireplace distortion.
Tell me, did you notice our antlers always mix up?
Always mix up?
Tell me, did you notice our antlers always mix up?
Always mix up?
Lost without your antlers growing,
It seems my own reflection--
Tell me, did you notice our antlers always mix up?
Always mix up?
Tell me, did you notice our antlers always mix up?
Always mix up?
(Ahhh...)
(Ahhh...)
(Ahhh...)
![[2]](http://web.archive.org./web/20130602045827/http://www.dkimages.com/discover/previews/847/970747.JPG){kind=link}