looking glass

tired
of tech
nology
trying
to move
my life

further
&
further
out/away
of/from
my body

we are
already
ghosts
in machines

empty eyes
spark nothing
reflect
artificial light

fingertips
in prolonged
death rattles

across all
these keys

relentlessly
throwing
ourselves
at the void

mixtape xxxvii - a little list of runaways

the runner doesn't speak
he won't speak to me
pack a bag and fly across the seas
and don't feel a thing
do you know what it's like to be sober?

-

i won't go back home
i won't know my way
town to town i go
a new one every day
i'm looking for alaska

-

gods of iron clashing
wind in battle through the night
tears will fall and
strength is needed to overcome
this old house is full
of leaks and mold on the walls
dragons of the mind
are lurking in the shadows
torrents wash away everything
raindrops flowing all around
queen takes king
the pawns are falling on the ground

-

oh so cool you seem
blending with that scene
wearing what you think is hard
i can see you struggling
boy don't hurt your brain
thinking what you're gonna say
'cause everything's a game
always try to calculate

-

my eyes blew out i could finally see
warm magical tropical oceans
organs of people circle the sea
i fell back to perpetual motion
i opened my skull you were looking at me
we all howled a chord and extended the three
freddy was there and remixed it after

-

maybe there is still time
oh i don't know anymore
and i see the wonderous things
in what you could have been
you kept on hanging around
showing me the rough side of town
i said once, i said twice
but not again

-

pour your words out
come on, i'm not coming back
draw the curtains
come on, that old sun is back
my hometown has cursed me
lately
i'm not coming back
cause the last thing that i noticed
as that old train came around
was a city burning golden
as the sun came shining down
and i said they'd still be in my mind
as i screamed goodbye
farewell to my old town

-

a pair of lovers in the kitchen
it's a story to tell
they are wishing
they are waiting
for something, well
a pair of lovers in the night
you're a lover and a fighter
that's okay with me
don't need no money to have a good time
there's only one thing i need

-

taking steps toward your door
i hasn't let myself before
hear your name called
she screams your name out
as you take her to the floor
think she likes it?
and you found it
and you drowned it
and you washed it clean
feed me words while you had her
between the sheets
bet she likes that

-

all my life i've been waiting
caught up in nothing at all
i fear not what i have never done before
but what i've been until now
hear the sound of bright light
bask in the silence of dark
endless voices erupt inside my head
a flurry of fears and doubt
mind is poison
knowledge helps the pain
but sense can't help me out

-

we were young souls
on the junkyard
now we are stunned minds
full of junk goods
but i feel your heartbeat
just like mine
i feel your heart beat
all the time
and we were bound to the citylife
flashlights
when we were falling into the night

-

for some this is all a game
don't take me just a fool
from the sidelines to the front wide
i'll be saving up for them new shoes
all the while i'll be wishing it's alright
'cause my main man on the right
plays it cool

-

i feel the darkness setting in
and my memory wears thin
i know it's happened times before
and i'm preparing for a fall
i've started breaking ties i've made
expecting blankness on this grave
a dozen times i've felt this breeze
but now i feel it in my sleep
so much more behind my words
i miss myself so much it hurts
feel the same
be this way

-

couldn't find you honesty
all the blisters you were holding alone
couldn't find you honesty
were you water
were you breaking
my frozen bones
my broken mind
it pulls this frozen weight on us
now i've spoken what it meant to be
in your doorway
standing taller than those long shadows
couldn't find you honesty
were you water
were you breaking my frozen bones

-

tracklisting:

the runner by airling

1055 by and the giraffe

alaska by animaux

torrent by asgeir

brain by banks

tropical oceans by dd dumbo

rough side of town by eleanor dunlop

i'm not coming back by husky

a pair of lovers by the jungle giants

hide by little may

help me out by lucianblomkamp

flashed junk mind by milky chance

gold snafu by sticky fingers

stay by tully on tully

bones by dustin tebbutt

you don’t forgive the silence for not speaking up
no matter how hard we’re trying it’s not hard enough
your eyes before the lightning to meet it by yourself
you’ve been tired and a little sick

you’ve been trying to work with it
you drew your grave on every single map
you don’t plan on staying long
you plan on burning it

no matter how wrong it went
you don’t have much more room to forget
you don’t have much more room to forget
you don’t forgive even the lightning

for leaving you
but everything should try again
even you
you followed the train through every prairie dawn

said "i’d like to see ohio one more time before it’s gone"
you had your hands up high in a prayer to crush your heart
and every single heart
was that eight point star

ever been tired
ever been a little sick
ever tried working through it

everything should try again - jason molina

anneli rufus:

“We are the ones who know how to entertain ourselves. How to learn without taking a class. How to contemplate and how to create. Loners, by virtue of being loners, in celebrating the state of standing alone, have an innate advantage when it comes to being brave—like pioneers, like mountain men, iconoclasts, rebels, and sole survivors. Loners have an advantage when faced with the unknown, the never-done-before, and the unprecedented. An advantage when it comes to being mindful like the Buddhists, spontaneous like the Taoists, crucibles of concentrated prayer like the desert saints, esoteric like the cabalists. Loners, by virtue of being loners, have at their fingertips the undiscovered, the unique, the rarified. Innate advantages when it comes to imagination, concentration, inner discipline. A knack for invention, originality, for finding resources in what others would call vacuums. A knack for visions.”

just ash

this is only
a smoke trail &
long-licked sky
burns far ahead.

watch how flame
curls on the edge
of all that comes
first.

sun gleam
weaves a liquid gold
line & cartographs
clouds or
progression or
progress through clouds.

like violet mountains
bite into sky,
snaggletoothed
through everything
insubstantial & just
insist on their space,
daring anyone bolder
to claim it.

you can climb
a mountain if you
must, but
can you move
a mountain out of
need?

until all its height,
heft, substance
& stubbornness
sit beneath the very
balls of your tiny,
tired feet.

because sometimes
faith is there
to move you
up the mountain, or
to move the mountain
beneath your work
& willfulness.

i just want
to peel these
peals of laughter
from the sides
of this ribcage
set them free like
so many birds
from this mountaintop.

watch what’s most
me, but not me,
climb higher if i
let it go, if i
don’t have to worry
about hanging on.

echoes of all
my inside selves
reverberate from
canyon walls, skip
across the tops of
douglas firs & shake
all the little aspen
leaves.

coyote chased
me up a mountain
to make me
love it, to make
me stop faulting
it from so far away.

the belly of the valley
is for low-slung
spirits who
neglect their wings &
the proud vault of
a howl flung moonward.

coyote snapped
at my ankles, tore
my achilles until i
learned to run
without it, until
hurt and impossibility
became new legs
i climbed into &
made work for me.

coyote bit
the flesh from my
back until all i saw
was spine & i
found a backbone
to build a new
body, or a new
being in the body
i already had.

coyote laughed
& i recoiled, until
the hiss & hackles i
raised became
breath through sharp
teeth & matted blond
fur that smelled
like leaves &
late october.