I never got to tell you
But I fell in love
The first time I saw you
On the first day of school
When we were just eleven
I made a little cardboard charm
And wrote your name
I wore it under my shirt
And daydreamed you did the same
You never tried to hurt me
Though I caused you trouble
And you could
You just gently took one step back
For every step I took
The brown of your eyes
Was the color of sorrow
Like sunshine refracted by rain
Sometimes I felt they were lit by your soul
When they’d flash and sparkle with pain
There was a hole in my heart
Inches wide and miles deep
And I was losing something
I had hoped I might keep
Pouring out in my chest
Making it so hard to breathe
You knew I’d survive
If you’d cut and I’d bleed
The first time the sun
Lit the gold in your hair
I thought it was magic
And couldn’t help stare
I can still hear your voice
Soft and warm like a child
Dancing like starlight on crystal
The brown of your eyes
The color of sorrow
Sunshine refracted by rain
Dazed by the flash
Transfixed by the sparkle
Haunted by a soul in such pain
A hole in my heart
Inches wide and miles deep
Losing the one thing
I had hoped I might keep
Pouring out in my chest
Making it so hard to breathe
Bleeding at best
My heart on my sleeve
I could be like the rest
You’d cut and I’d bleed
I’m not like you
I never was
Sometimes I used to wonder
How I came to be here
Born I was told like any other
But still the same
I am not from here
I still feel
The same sudden tears
Always different
Always strange
Always turned out the same
Always seemed
I was always to blame
Wishing there was someone like me
Wishing they’d take me home
From the time I first remember
I wanted to go back home
Holding on to the pain
From a loss I thought
I’d never put my finger on
Trying to recall how it felt
Like trying to pick up water
The feeling faded more each time
I tried to grasp it harder
Driving home in the snow
Loving you
Thinking back
When I really felt cold
Fences guard the road on either side
They neither keep the wind in
Nor keep the snow out
I may as well have been
On the outside looking in
It looks so chaste and clean
Innocent, pristine
Like the first time I saw her
But that was summer
And the gold was just sun in her hair
And flecks in her eyes
And all we shared was sadness
And melancholy has no place in June
I stopped the car in the middle of the road
Got out and looked around
Waited out the feeling
That I should get back in
I turned around
Looked down the road
And the crossroad was behind me
And I don’t think I could find it going back
I know again but can’t chose when
Some green side road will remind me
Of the road I didn’t take
And the sad, sweet youth I left behind me
I may as well have been
On the outside looking in
Still I hang on
As if my life depended
To my past
And being twelve
And snow-covered trees
That last only a day
Things that I’ve said and feelings now dead
And not in order at all
Times that I’ve run and times that I’ve fled
Now the calm before the fall
Things that I’ve said and feelings now dead
And not remembered at all
Things that I’ve done and words that you’ve said
That forced my back to the wall
Worlds I’ve known and people I’ve blown
And people that I’ll never know
Times that I’ve bled and coming up dead
Times I just couldn’t let go
Trees I’ve been in and places I’ve been
Somewhere out in the green
I dreamed you’d find of the people I’ve been
The one I once had seen
Long ago and far away, in a dream of day
Where I was only with you
As you were always above what seemed to be the way
Only you could’ve made it come true
You never understood
I never thought you would
But now my bloody face
My bleeding hands
Your pleading face
Could I die, could I cleanse
Could my mind erase?
No sorrow in my knowledge
I won’t see tomorrow
But the way you look at me
It’s not easy
How I never knew what was important to you
That you would never let show
How you couldn’t see you were so important to me
And now how you’ll never know
Thoughts and dreams and pictures I’ve seen
That seem to stick out in my mind
How I couldn’t stop to think of the cost
And you couldn’t leave it behind
Long ago and far away, in a dream of day
Where I could only see you
You were always above those who put me down
I thought you could’ve made it come true
I’m gonna go away
But the moment comes
And what of you
Cosmic lover
In a world of rain?
Could I leave you
In a world of pain
I couldn’t be you
Couldn’t see you there
You’d never see me there
They never understood
What made me think they would
Mourn my bloody face,
Wash my bleeding hands,
See my pleading face ?
Could I die, could I cleanse
Could my mind erase?
No sorrow in their knowledge
They won’t see me tomorrow
Knowing none will miss me
Why should I bother?
Why should I bother?
When did you first know
That you were a joke?
The punch line was in place
By my eleventh year
The seeds only sought
The rain and reason
I didn’t know what was coming
When I came here
But it wasn’t the locale
So much as the season
I see myself running away
Even then, I found myself running away
You can run your whole life
But where will you stay?
The die was cast that charts my course,
The source my fears
The seeds had wrought
The rain and ruin of reason
Though I didn’t fall just because
I came here
For years I cursed the locale
And lost the season
I saw myself running away
Even now, it’s all about running away
You can run your whole life
But you can’t outrun the rain
In a sense, it was all about running away
At the least little thing, I’d be running away
I’ve run my whole life
And lost it on the way
Even now, it’s all about running away
Even now, it’s all about running away
You can run your whole life
Till there’s nowhere left to stay
First grade class picture, 1968
We all lived
Right by Sharon’s street
Sharon and I were friends
Before we started school
I had long blonde hair
And liked to explore
With Sharon’s bright face
Right beside me
Linda was quiet and reserved
Pretty as a girl can be
School was tough for Dave
And it was tough for me
And Sharon only got cuter
I never knew
Dave had a crush on Sharon too
All this time with one side of the story
I had to go back there to write it
Now I know him cause I know that sorrow
There all that time unrequited
Kids, they can be so cruel
What makes you think
Sharon’d ever want you?
I don’t think they come
Any sweeter than Linda
But she says she said this too
It hurts my heart to think
What Dave must have gone through
Those years quickly passed
At ten I moved away
My life got real bad
I often thought back on that town
And how my life’d be with Sharon still around
But all that time
Dave must have carried the flame
I don’t know why I’m back in this story
I guess I’m only here to write it
I love him for staying there with my Sharon
There all that time unrequited
A tragedy with a happy ending
I came all this way just to write it
I love him for taking care of my Sharon
There all that time unrequited
There all that time unrequited
When we were six years old
You were my best friend
Big blue eyes and freckles
And dark hair in the wind
We just slipped away
I never saw you again
Now I’ve got something to say
I’ll always be your friend
And it’s the least I can do
Finally catch up to you
Tell you I want you to be
There in heaven with me
My mom told me way back then
Big black marks in a book by my name
I can see that page, black and full
And I felt only shame
But it ain’t like that
It ain’t like that
There’s only one book
It’s the book of life
I need to be sure you’re in
I remember cool green grass
Blue New England skies
Sitting on a split-rail fence
I first saw God in your eyes
Kind of remember how it felt
Never had to say a word
Can’t remember what changed or when
But I remember you watching me go
Now it’s the least I can do
Finally catch up to you
Tell you I want you to be
There in heaven with me
When we were six years old
You were my best friend
Big blue eyes and freckles
And dark hair in the wind
I’m maybe 9 or 10
He’s comforting me,
Telling me it’s okay
I can see Jesus in my back yard
Up the hill where we used to play
Now it’s the least I can do
Finally catch up to you
Tell you I want you to be
There in heaven with me
Dave left Sharon and that story
He’d have to go back there to right it
She knows him cause she knows that sorrow
Left there all that time unrequited
One year he came back and he called her
Just to say he’d gotten married
When she told me I could hear her sorrow
She’d lost him again unrequited
Thirty years have passed in this story
Dave and Sharon finally married
This tragedy has a happy ending
They’ll never be again unrequited
Never again unrequited
Never again unrequited
My songs and some scars
Lonely tears as I face the stars
Are all that’s left
Of the me I used to know
As I wander through the old house
Where I lived out half my days
I realize
I don’t know who I used to be
I came upon some lines
I had written long ago,
“If I turn inward,
I can go onward with fire”
And I wondered,
Did it really hurt that bad?
I could remember all the pain
But it felt like someone else
And I couldn’t put myself in his place
Long, hard rain
Cold fire
Long, hard rain
Cold fire
The evening clouds, one by one
Roll off and out of view
The sky a screen, the sound turned down
A story of my youth
The darkened trees below
Bend down and look away
As if to say they knew my fate
Having seen before the play
Long, hard rain
Cold fire
Long, hard rain
Cold fire
Long, hard rain
I look to the clouds at night
And my heart perks up
I feel the breath of God
Blow the hair across my face
Clouds flash, the way that the sun
Lights just a piece of each wave
Like a hug on the inside
I find each star in its place
Halo round the moon
Through the trees a lake of green
On the wind you hear a tune
Something there but seldom seen
In the eyes of any child
The light of God shines through
God’s love in my children
And I’m here in His place
Halo round the moon
Through the trees a lake of green
On the wind you hear a tune
Something there but seldom seen
I look to the clouds at night
And my heart perks up
I feel the breath of God
Blow the hair across my face
We have forgotten
Our Geppetto
Giver of all good things
It could be said
We are nothing more than
Puppets made of meat
Before the womb, now I name you
I have sent my son to claim you
You are more to me than dust and clay
Sin our strings
Bound by Satan,
Lord of the air,
The puppet master
Enough strings
Tangle of lies
A web by
Another name
Not too much for you to bear
I have sent a helper there
I have sent him there to break you free
Death will sting
Meat will rot
Flesh needs blood to live
Blood was given
But the lie deceives
And leads to death
I have made the sacrifice
I came down to save your life
Now my child, you don’t have to die
Here we stand
We feel so tall
In all our glory
Darkness the light
That shines on us
Revealing corpses end to end
There’s a blood that conquers death
There’s a light that sets you free
I didn’t send you here just to die
Enough strings
Tangle of lies
Death by
Another name
One more string
One more lie
The spider
Awaits his prey