Capable Of

Self Reliance (2021) 

Bluedream  
I'm the mountain range in your living room, my elements hard to endure  
I'm the waves that crash against the cliffs when oiled bodies beg for the shore  
I'm the snow that falls on Christmas Eve, when you're warm inside your home  

You're the itch I feel in the back of my throat, any stronger and I'd choke  
You're the hand that shook me in my sleep, I lost my bluedream when I woke  
You're the arms that grab to hold me tight when tears are all I know  

When what you want becomes what you need  
The friction digs into the beauty underneath  
Now we have it all  

I'm the shady tree in the summer, and you're the breath I take above water  
I'm that lucky break on a bad bet, and you're the promise of tomorrow in the sunset  
And we seem so broken alone but our pieces fit well together  

Some would have fled the scene, but we brought the gasoline  
Time to get comfortable 'cause you and I have things to do  
We tear these walls down, we walk on hallowed ground  
Say no until we say we're gonna do it anyway  
Bit 'til we broke skin, cried when we gave in  
We fought through all of it and now on fucking thrones we sit  

Yeah, oh yeah, you're why I made it out alive  
Yeah, oh yeah, we are two voices in the night  

The City Sleeps (Familiar Foe)   
It's 2AM and I know these walls aren't thick enough    
Building your case and my mouth's become the smoking gun   
The wolves are at the door, think I'll invite them in   
Let's play this game so I can feel better   
Where you be the nail and I be the hammer   
Your tears fall hard, and I've earned every one of them   

Another night, another fight   
Hello, familiar foe   
How much was meant of what was said?    
I don't want to know   

Get out your shovels 'cause you're digging up the bodies   
Carcasses of arguments to try to make me sorry   
Beauty with a knack for re-imagined fact   
Breathing out your fury, you leave no doubt   
Four letter lacerations, you bleed me out   
A tidal wave of sound contrived to make me drown   

The city sleeps   
I listen to her breathing   
The words repeat   
I'm staring at the ceiling  

Snowy Evening   
(Lyrics adapted from the poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"  by Robert Frost)  
Whose woods these are I think I know   
His house is in the village, though   
He will not see me stopping here   
To watch his woods fill up with snow   

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep   
But I have promises to keep   
And miles to go before I sleep   
And miles to go before I sleep   

My little horse must think it queer   
To stop without a farmhouse near   
Between the woods and frozen lake   
The darkest evening of the year   

He gives his harness bells a shake (the woods are lovely, dark, and deep)   
To ask if there is some mistake (but I have promises to keep)   
The only other sound's the sweep (and miles to go before I sleep)   
Of easy wind and downy flake (And miles to go before I sleep)   

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep   
But I have promises to keep  

Your Ghost Might Kill Me   
What the hell?  I'm so confused   
It used to be just me and you   
Sharing kisses by the glow of the dome light   
Now all your sins are omission   
A house of cards of where you've been   
Think I prefer to be alone tonight   

The smoke escapes from my lungs   
Nerves go numb   
Reach for another blunt   
Until it isn't any fun   

You were the best part of my life   
Now your ghost might kill me and I, I guess it's alright   

I'm sleeping on the couch again   
In disbelief we shared a bed   
Pillow talking as we steadied our breathing   
I thought I knew just who you are   
But doors were closed, I never saw   
The deception you were capable of speaking   

Now the devil spends his time at my side   
The things he whispers, I can't call them lies   
I need someone else to save me from myself   
The bottle knows where I go to hide   
The pills kick in and convince me I'm fine   
I need someone else to save me  

SevenThirteen   
Every day you lived, you lived them better than me   
So why are you the one in the hospital sheets?     
This disease will take the best of us   
And it's logic I'll never see   

Just let me take your place   
Pump the chemicals into my veins   

How are you strong enough to say goodbye?     
I don't want you to leave   

They told me on my knees that I'd see you again   
But what if they were wrong and this is all we get?   
As you slide underneath, I'll take your pain   
I never learned how to grieve, now you can't show me the way   

How are you strong enough to say goodbye?   
I don't want you to leave   
How are you strong enough to say goodbye?    
It's getting harder to breathe    

I love you   
I love you   
I love you   
I love you   
I love you   
I love you   
I love you, too   

If life is just a highway can I u-turn on this interstate?     
My nights now have two choices, stay awake or overmedicate   
I'm haunted by the memories of how I failed you as a son   
How I'll continue to disappoint when you see what I've become   
If cancer had a face, I'd fucking rip it from its bones   
Torture everyone it loved, leave them all to die alone   

How are you strong enough?  
How are you strong enough?  

I love you, I love you, I love you  

Let Go  
I've lost the will to move and I know you've felt it, too  
My apathy hates company  
I'm trapped beneath the ice of the shortcomings of life  
The space between what is and where I want to be  

Don't look for me, 'cause I'm not here  
Don't look for me, I'm gone  

I know I need to be present to find shelter in all of this  
But there's a war between my temples and I find it so hard to just  

Let go, let go  
This isn't what I thought it would be   
But I guess it shouldn't matter to me  
Let go, let go  
This isn't what I thought it would be  
But I need to remember to breathe   

The storm is all I see, flowing through and over me  
I just keep moving, missing forests for the trees  
Havoc feels like something I've wed  
'Til death do us part, wish that this was the end  
Grasping for anything that resembles who I've been  

I know I need to be present but things keep pulling me away  
I need the "me" I don't resent and lift myself out of the grey  

Lost Your Touch   
I'm watching you pacing through your bedroom window   
Walking in circles as this disaster eats you   
From the inside through your flesh, painted in the beats of sweat   
They soak your collar and choke your neck   

Your pain doesn't make a sound   
And you won't open your mouth   
And through the silence, I see the violence    
Of your mind deconstructing itself   

I lost you underneath the waves   
And I reach for you, but you turn away   

So now you're broken; join the club   
Collect the pieces and build yourself back up   

I lost you underneath the waves   
And I reach for you, but you turn away   
No, don't you turn away, don't you turn away, don't you turn away  

Sacrifice  
It's big exotic eyes, they hold my gaze inside my dreams  
It's your smile when you laugh, I'm waking up to my own screams  
Her caramel curls flow in the wind out on a Midtown balcony  
The choices I should've made lead down the road that could've saved  

I never learned how to sacrifice  

Now I hate what I know, I lost you in the rain  
And I begged you not to go, but you left all the same  
So I'm alone in the sand on the fourth of July  
From the fire in the sky, I see the shadow of you and I  

There are voices in the walls and they whisper with every step  
"Remember what you could have had" and "how the fuck did you lose it?"   
What would I say if you were here?  Where the hell could I even start?    
You needed more than what I gave and what I held tore us apart  

Better The Devil You Know  
I've got this time I've saved for wasting away  
And second-guessing all these choices I've made  
I don't have confidence in the faith you seem to see  
Like a humid Houston summer, my sins just stick to me  

I wanna talk about it, you wanna scream about it  
So we'll just seethe about it until we're broken down it's  
Only fair that I get what I deserve, now  
You wanna talk about it, I wanna scream about it  
Your eyes go wide, are you so goddamn sure it's  
Better the devil you know?    
   
I'm home in the tension, a fury without a sound  
When I open up scared, I'm scared I'll let you down  
I hope for a eulogy that you are proud to preach  
But I get a little dirty, heaven may be out of my reach  
We'll do our dance and land our punches before my fears verbalize  
I'll fight your fire with an avalanche and bury us both alive  

I'm always the loudest guy in the entire fucking room  
I want to be the silent type but I feel too much to prove  
The ready, fire, aim approach?  It keeps me in the trouble  
I have a big heart tensed and you need to stretch the muscle  
I tire as I carry all the things I can't let go  
I want to be like spring but can't forget the things I know  
I hear things said about me and I think they're all absurd  
I hear things said about me and believe in every word  
My mirror says my soul is older than the life I've lived  
My heart says I grew up too fast, I never really did  
I know I've had it good and bad, and others had it worse  
I know I've lived just some of me, the rest has been coerced  
You're standing by my side because for some reason you chose me  
To keep you by my side you'll have to be the one who knows me  
Accept that I fall down and I don't always get back up?   
Accept that I say "fuck" too much, directed at those I love?  
Accept at times I care too much, and others not enough?  
Believe all my defenses can be broken with your touch?  
Good and bad are two sides of my coin, and I am spent  
Heads or tails, I'm in your pocket  
Keep me there in your ascent  

Rearden  
We should be ripe with opportunity   
But we're dying on the vine, motherfucking wave of heat  
Wyatt's Torch burns bright  
Who is to blame? The cries are of panic  
While polishing brass on the decks of Titanic  
Demand a sacrifice  
No, not I!   

You're wasting your time  
The thing I respect is the ideal you won't find  
You're wasting your time  
The world won't be yours and my life remains  

These foes are deceptive and shifty   
They all cry for charity, deliver us from poverty  
Feeding us cancer while calling it sugar and spice (nah, fuck that)  
I see that there is no shortage of victims  
The martyrs all swell with their genuine indifference  
Who will pay the price?    
No, not I!  

I'll stop the motor of the world