1. |
Big Big Bang
00:54
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I was not a mistake
My death was not a mistake
You were not a mistake
Your memory was not a mistake
We are all not mistakes
Bang! Big, big bang!
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2. |
Dancing With The Goblins
04:37
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3. |
Oh Captain, My Captain!
03:29
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4. |
Fatigue
02:04
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5. |
Rainy Weather
04:43
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6. |
Pretty In Pornography
04:39
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When she finds the magazines underneath her husband's side of the bed,
she'll stand naked in front of the mirror for hours (... well what did you expect?)
"Bang dumb blondes, sexy singles and busty brunettes..."
I must not be as beautiful as the advertising says...
Miss, I saw your poster recently...
I read your ad in one of Playboy's latest magazines, actually...
I've fed every need that I believed photography could feed me
If you can believe me... I hate it.
You are worth so much more than my brief moment of orgasm
when I allow my mind to deceive me.
I'd like to be an open book and it's hard to admit
how I take advantage of the desires God gave me...
But I don't want to sugarcoat this - I feel hopeless, trapped in brokenness -
like I lost before I ever started racing...
and I know as well as anybody, this is a difficult topic to be facing,
and a difficult confession for me to be making
but I'm stating that when God started the molding, shaping and creating -
you were not designed to be the objects that men look at while masturbating.
Baby, never forget that you were made for relating and I'm sick of failing
to realize exactly what it is that I'm saying...
I apologize.
It was never my intent to ruin lives, compromise, or feed these eyes
something other than what was designed.
I apologize.
It was never my desire to downsize or objectify the beauty God designed
to be wrapped tight until its proper time...
Sometimes, though... I feed my indecency....
Kind of slide that magazine across the counter and do it quietly:
shy my face away so that no one else can see...
"Will that be all for you today, sir?"
"Yes ma'am, I'd like to pay to become the opposite of what I want to be."
I wish I'd have waited, dedicated to see
the experience God had planned for me from the beginning.
I am not patient enough to not give in
to every sin forbidden to the hearts of men...
Since when am I patient enough to not give in?
I just apologized five minutes ago!
God! come on! what's going on? I'm sick of this!
SOMEBODY PUT SOME CLOTHES ON - YOU'RE BETTER THAN THIS!
God's most beautiful creation and
I'm sitting here euphoric like I have the right to destroy it
just cause I don't have enough dedication to build a relationship
with the one who can free me, so I resort to suffocation of my very foundations
while claiming that I'm striving to meet the expectations of purity?
Jesus keep reassuring me,
I'm yearning to be the entity that you desire me to be
Jesus keep reassuring her,
the one in the centerfold, the picture I'll remember until I grow old
She is human; she is human,
she is bought and sold to a million empty souls feeling so hopeless
that they'll try anything to fill the hole.
I apologize.
Please believe it's true.
I never meant to hurt you.
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7. |
Life In General
02:57
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BE THE CHANGE...
...said vipers! tigers!
reassemble, rearrange!
(i long to live as a lion so i violently tuff up my mane)
oh high king of heaven,
my victory won!!
(but i could still taste the soot in my lungs
when that chorus was finally sung)
i called you so often, but you never came
i reached out to you! but you paid no attention
and as wisdom shouts out into the noisy streets
i will cusp my ears tight in stubborn pretension
("how terrible for you who lie awake at night, thinking up evil plans")
BARREL LOADED!!! (to your brother...)
Abel! run for cover!
if you tilt, i tilt your world in my hands -
take up my life with fraud and violence, and serpent i will meet your demands!
bag lady, you know I heard you sing and
(or rumor has it) you believed in me
...and december's finally set me free...
(but Mary! i've forgotten just what it means to breathe!)
and as she held baby jesus so very closely (to her bosom, to her soul)
i will cling tightly to my demons in the dark and imagine what it's like
to be
entirely
whole!!!!
singers, did you feel the ground shake beneath you
when your mustard seed fell deep in dark soil?
but i called out "TORTURE!" amongst the scoffers
(and though the ground is once more fertile)
i recoil...
...I RECOIL!!!...
and as his mother's blood begins to boil,
(and as we pollute god's lips with gin and oil)
i've ne're witnessed such turmoil
as when his heart reflected mine! (and, oh, on that note, my god died)
be the change!
said mother, father,
brother, sister, son, daughter,
i come to you (the porno pauper) with understanding in my open hands
and a tired knowledge in my eyes
(if this beauty is so sacred, how does it sell so fast?)
i still remember the first time i died ...
-and oh so unknowingly- gave it a second try
BUT LOVE IS PATIENT!!! LOVE IS KIND!!!
and somewhere amongst this mishap i was allowed to survive
be the change, said angels, demons,
reassemble, rearrange!
i long to live as a lion
so i study him studying me violently tuff up my mane...
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8. |
The Bride
02:57
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If misery loves company (and isn’t that why you clung to me?)
let’s all come together and we’ll a call it a church
put a few people on pedestals and they can tell us why we hurt
and I will hold these people with such high esteem
(o my god, if you fail, you fail the whole machine)
aren’t we all just wolves in sheep’s clothing?
shepherd, tend to your flock, but look out for the beast
cause she’s a mean one, you see
she’s beautiful, she’s ugly, her lips taste like honey
and she’s been eyeing you the way that she’s eyeing me
but my costume is so clean!
I finally tucked my claws inside these little feet
and I’m standing so righteous and haughty!
But I lost interest in your bride (that body)
when I stopped recognizing the groom in the congregation
Ephesus! Where is that love?
What it’s this uninviting, apprehensive sensation?
And when did our relationship become exclusive?
There is nothing new underneath that sun
but I will not succumb to be recruited
for the only army that shoots the wounded
(I would rather be the wounded)
I AM THE WOUNDED!
SANCTUARY!
O, the church is a whore, but she’s still my mother
(and I try to love her) God knows I love her!
I am her.
Better to lose an arm or a leg
(yeah!) cast out anything that’s gonna cause you to fail again
if I wasn’t such a sucker for pain,
I would’ve gouged out my eyes nine years ago, today
and no need to worry about me pointing out your flaws
I don’t have a speck in my eye, I’ve got a splintered log
and I am not strong enough to cut it off
(but I’m not trusting enough to hand someone else the saw)
So it’s the blind disagreeing with the blind, about sight
and it’s the mute screaming at the deaf (with all his might)
about wrong and right
“I’ve got a novel full of excuses
about why I left the bride,
and they’re all justified!”
In broken penmanship and crooked lines
“I AM ENTIRELY BITTER INSIDE”
and I need somebody wiser to differentiate between truths and lies
and pray my calloused heart beats steady,
I’m pretty good at forgiving, but I’d like to start forgetting
and I’m tired of the rats eating my harp string
I miss the sound of her voice when she’d sing:
“I’m coming back to the heart of worship,
and it’s all about You. It’s all about You, Jesus.
I’m sorry, Lord, for the things I’ve made it.
It’s all about You. It’s all about You, Jesus.”
The church may be a whore but she has a lot to teach me,
and if love keeps no record of wrongs then I want to love completely
we all are whores,
we are all lovers
and I am gonna love her
I am her.
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9. |
Werewolves
04:44
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Cause when I was 6,6, six years old
I saw my first Goosebumps episode on Nickelodeon,
And that stupid T.V. show made me so scared of warewolves that
I was afraid to walk into the dark for months on end and
I suppose nothing much has changed sine then
Except for now these monsters are personified within
And I go to sleep with them
And cuddle with them and pretend that I’m
7,7, seven years old, once the fear had finally gone away,
until I saw my father’s ghost inside my childhood home’s window panes,
and some silent, shadowed matter followed me around the halls of my house when I was eight,
so I’ve held onto the belief that there’s something dark
lurking around my family to this day.
I’ve used up all 999 lives so by the 10th time I die
I’ll be right by your side,
And we’ll both agree that we tried to land on out feet!
(ha ha! Poor boy! I don’t even believe in demons!)
I KNOW! I KNOW! Me neither,
nobody believes in demons until they’ve seen them!
And no I don’t smoke no ganga,
And I'm not gonna smoke that ganga
because all of my friends already smoked enough ganga
For two of my lifetimes and I fell apart while I watched them fall apart
So I figure I’ve got enough falling apart in my system already…
And I’m scared for my family
(and I’m scared the warewolves will keep attacking my dad!)
they’ve already bitten him up pretty bad,
and the swelling’s spreading to my mom’s side of the bed…
AND I’M THINKING HARD LATELY ABOUT GETTING SOME MEDS
TO HELP CLEAR UP THIS DEPRESSION THAT’S COULDING MY HEAD!
But those tiny little red and white
and black and green and yellow and orange and blue
Pills scare me half to death.
When I was little, my mom hung and elephant on my wall
and I had to pray to God that it wouldn’t eat me in my sleep!
I’m a little older now and still learning what I think
about my depressive tendencies
But I know with all my heart that the same God
that kept me alive then is the same one
Holds my hand when I’m weak,
And gives me hugs when I weep.
And I don’t want smoke to be the reason for my rock and roll,
I don’t want substance to be the reason my body bleeds!
“Prone to wander, Lord I feel it…”
but if you’d hold onto me
I promise I’ll do my best to keep on trying to believe!
“PRONE TO WANDER, LORD I FEEL IT!
Prone to leave the God I love.
Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it,
Seal it for your courts above.”
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10. |
Ms. Lashe
04:34
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The other day I saw this teddy bear with a smile...
Do you still call me "Teddy Bear" from up there,
cause I can still see you smiling...
god, I would love to see that smile, and
God, I am a little bit jealous of you, because I know you get to.
I try to pray, every day, for her family, but sometimes
(maybe even most of the time) I forget to.
My little sister still cries so much sometimes
when she thinks about how much she misses you.
And I'm a little bit jealous of that too, you know?
Cause I try so hard to lose all control
and become as emotionally unstable as possible
so that I can feel like I'm feeling release.
I remember the day I deleted your name from my phone...
it was hard, and I tried so hard not to cry,
but I kept on accidentally calling you too many times after you died
cause I missed you, and in some unbelieving corner of my mind,
I thought that you might be home.
And I cannot believe that this is happening.
You know it's things like this that make me doubt God,
but I know that you never did when I whispered him to you.
My God, what am I supposed to do?
I don't think you doubted him for a moment...
And if only we all had that faith,
but I know so many of your friends that went straight to the bottle
to take the pain away - AND AS I TAKE ANOTHER SWALLOW
we are all collectively the same -
I've got to keep myself inside this drunken state
to make sure I remember your name when all other feeling floats away.
The one thing that's haunting...
the one thing that's haunting me are your daddy's eyes.
Do you remember standing outside of your sister's apartment?
It was cold and it was nighttime and it was raining pretty hard:
the perfect cliche for a first kiss in the dark!
FLASH BACK to me standing outside of your hospital door!
Your daddy grabbed me by the shoulder - said, "Son, she loved you!
and she missed you so much more than you know...
and there's no going back now.
Are you sure that you want this to be the last memory that you have of her?"
The one thing that's haunting...
the one thing that's haunting is your daddy's smile,
and the way that I still saw the pain in his eyes
when I cried on his shoulder the same way that you used to cry on mine.
Said, "I may not be strong enough to let you go,
but I'm sure not so weak as to let you go without saying goodbye."
Is this really goodbye?
The one thing that's encouraging...
the one thing that still gives me strength are your daddy's eyes,
and the way that he maintained composure while the rest of us
broke down and cried.
How do you do that?
He said, "Always remember her life."
So I will write my cheesy songs
that you said you always liked,
and I will live to radiate the life that poured out from your insides,
and I will try to smile the way you smiled,
you beautiful, beautiful, beautiful... beautiful child.
And if ever I forget, I know that you loved me all the while...
I saw a teddy bear the other day and it reminded me of you -
o the end is heaven, and I know you are safe, and I can't wait to get to see you.
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11. |
When I Go To Meet God
09:57
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When I go to meet God
I'm gonna have to be honest...
I'm gonna have to tell the truth
not a day went by that I didn't doubt you.
You always said, "Don't grow up too fast,
you're just a boy",
but it's better to be in the house of sorrow than the house of joy,
and if I could have a heart like David, that resembles yours,
then what are the odds Solomon's sadness
might have creeped in somewhere to even the score?
Dear Dad, do you remember when I was always sad?
You and mom called it my "depressed year," and I know it was pretty bad...
What drives a child to want to give up everything he has?
What makes a person think that?
What makes a mother's son decide that death is better than tomorrow?
Inside of each and every breath that I "borrowed"
I held onto the sorrow and thought:
"I'll never be able to repay Jesus with the way I live"
and now I'm thinking so much that I've screwed everything up
and I don't even know if you exist,
so I may as well not exist.
So when I come to meet you
I'm gonna have to be honest
I'm going to tell the truth
not one day has gone by that I haven't doubted you.
But I never told you both that I almost killed myself. I did.
I almost drove my car right off that highway bridge,
and as I picked up pace, prayed to God that he'd forgive me if I went through with it:
this is not a life worth living, I've already ruined it!
Mom, dad, sister, friends, family -
if I never see you again I hope you live out your lives happily.
Give my dog a kiss of the lips and all of my writings go to Isaac -
man, the one's about me and you are not meant to be kept in private.
Make them your own and write your songs to inspire the world the way I wish that I did...
Sister, you're beautiful, don't ever let them take that away.
Don't let yourself become just another face with no name.
Get to know Isaac better, you two can collaborate
(your voice is more beautiful than his has ever been, anyway)
Mom, I'm sorry the last time we talked, we fought...
I'm just so sick of pretending to be somebody I'm not.
And years down the line when I am all but forgot, you were my last thought.
And to finish the note before I get up to go, dad, I'm sorry I kept all this pain inside -
this will hurt you more than anyone else.
When I breathe my last I will pray that you can forget your past in all of this
and try not to blame yourself...
I tried to find a reason to stay alive!
I love you all so much...
goodbye.
God I'm coming to meet you now!
I suppose this decision doesn't display much trust, but
if you are real and really out there
then make me feel like I'm talking to something more than the ceiling!
Dear mom, I'm getting better at writing happier things -
I know you'll never understand it but I'm attached to the sadness
and it rings true when I sing, and
there's a little bit of healing inside all of our suffering
as I have a savior that took up my suffering for me.
And as I drove down I-40 to collide with 25
I swear to God something forgotten came alive to me inside
and this little memory sparked a reason to risk life one more night:
on christmas morning I don't want my sister to wake up without her brother by her side!
TEAR ME TO PIECES, MY SWEET SUICIDE!
For to die is gain, and to live is Christ so I will make you the apple of my eye...
when I come to meet You
I'm going to come complete, as You have completed me.
I'm going to come whole
and I am begging to come happy...
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Levi The Poet Albuquerque, New Mexico
Writer and storyteller. Everything is a gift.
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