Jackson
You're taking two Klonopin
So you can quit flipping
And face our friends
You dated the sainted dead
He ain't nothing but a prayer card
Tacked up with my record jackets
We're riding through Jackson pines
Towards Six Flags to wait in lines
And have our spines shook
And I'm shook
Got the space sickness
While we wait on the weightlessness
A delirious kiss
And the feeling of falling in
Getting good at looking so in love
But my eyes are unfocused
We're right back in Manalapan
Those rainbows of oil spin
On your former street
Are we more than meat?
Not a goddamn thing we could have said
To convince you
Now I dream in color of your face
And I see the coast in your mirror shades
Only feel relief when I'm back at home
Falling forward alone
With the space sickness
While we wait on the weightlessness
A delirious kiss
And the feeling of falling in
So there's nothing to do when
It's a foregone conclusion
A pool overflowing and bursting
Come the fuck on
I don't wanna die
At the hands of the Jackson Whites
Let the warm air rush in
At the wreck up ahead

Warning
Pennants stiffen on the strip
Wind is whipping through the tinsel
Fixed to the dealership
And you're looking mighty ghostly
Just like Bowie on Soul Train
Wrapped in your sable
Let's throw some brake light in the night
Oh it looks so nice to me
So what I wasn't having no nightmares
Probably 'cause I couldn't catch the REM
Warning
I am some kind of handful
Empty as a dream Grand Central
When I leave
Gonna need my body
The shape of true love is terrifying enough
Hope you're telling me the truth
Getting goosebumps on your roof
Friendship's the biggest myth
Heart is skipping like a Cessna stalling out and falling free
Live in the space between
Call the cat in from the dark
Singing born free on the porch
My love lives on
A positive sobriety birthday
A fifth remission anniversary
Warning...

XR
Broke my bong on purpose
Hit the ceiling with weed
That summer benzo blackouts
Erased my identity
At Vintage Vinyl to score some CD's
For ripping rails not listening
This is starting to scare me
Three perfect chords get me closer to heaven
Been Mapping The Abyss Since 2007
Here I am again at Ben's myspace grave
And then out of nowhere
The smell of his basement
Where we watched Faces Of Death
And we regretted it
Imagining victory
Our alternate history
The songs we never wrote
They float above and below me
Keepsake tinnitus shrieks me to sleep
Each frequency's a memory of some
Show we attended
Fuck your learner's permit
Drive down to Philly with me
To see the Wrens in a rec room
Out in the street where our heat turns to steam
And every surface is mercury glass
Wanna wake up wanting to listen to records
But those old feelings elude me
I raise a toast to the rock n' roll ghost
But it ain't whiskey
It's Emergen-C
Almost died a thousand times
High is just a tingling behind my eyes
Got no serotonin left
Signed away your right to be forgotten
Almost died a thousand times
High is just a tingling behind my eyes
Got no serotonin left
Signed away your right to be forgotten

Place Names
There it hovered then a flash
Instantly the sand is glass
If you don't know just ask around
Dig your nails into my hand
Tattoo of a wedding band
I could hit the floor soon myself
For the last year you lived
You slept in your parents' bed
You whisper now from outside time
"The Milky Way's a swirling drain
Gotta laugh the dread away
There's no word for what I became"
Screen memories of weekends never spent
Out to Mystic and to Cape May
Still smoking in diners the whole way
And the bridge whips up behind us
The fifth mode of travel will make us see
That everyone's alive in old light overflowing from the pool
Guess I guess the one's the one I had to lose
Flash of white engulfs us as the film runs out
I'd say I'll see you 'round but man I have my doubts
I discard another friend
His skin's that hepatitis tint
Eyes that got an acquisitive glint
One generation to the next
In the cell a secret knowledge
So oblivious so humane
We met on VJ Day
Tickertape
My memory is fading
Your girlfriend from back then
Where's she now?
When the psychic said your name
My heart skipped
My life swelled
I lived in hope
Believe me baby I don't know a lot but I know this is true
You could fuck around and I would forgive you
Why does every story end with cut to black?
Now I would do anything to get you back

Child Bride
Child Bride
You were my best friend
'Til your dad slapped the living shit out of you
In front of me
And I could see
You leave your body
And I knew we were through
Well you let me keep your Dreamcast
When she picked up and moved you south
You didn't say
And I went one day to call on you
And found an empty house
Skeletor
Of the the liquor store
The bitch took you away
Some years later I played in Orlando
You came out and your hair was box dye black
You told me all about your new girlfriend
How she turned you on to crack
I said man I can't
My heart would
My heart would explode
Slow the years down
Lose your twenties
Loaded all the time
Slow the years down
Lose your twenties
Loaded all the time

Laramie
We got caught in Laramie
Snowstorm closed down I-80
We got lushed with strangers at the Spike
Threw pink brake light out into the night
Useless diamond
The vacant city gleams
Sparkling highways empty 'cept for me
Stillborn Summer, a cold reality
Warm waves, plastic sunshine fills me
All alone with my strip mall memories
Chasing the chills I felt when I was eighteen
Both in need of rescue
So who saves whom?
In your car had "I Guess We're Done" duels
I'll do the Kev and you can do the Charles
We were both in need of rescue
So who saved whom?
Derealization
Half a decade on
A house show in Caldwell
Forward 13 months
The innocence ended when I got the call
Your street's just a place it has no memory at all

Chambers
The feds closed Silk Road so I'm out in the cold
I don't know anyone
Lights out in south beach coming up on seven weeks
Need a pill to sleep so I drive up to Stapleton
But even I'm not dumb enough to enter the Chambers
No smokes so I sniff my coat and wait for the early boat
My veins feel electric
It's technically NYC but dear Christ does it get lonely
The panic sets in 'cause nothing's happening
Days of the same old shit
But I'll miss all of it
Baby's got cataracts
Her coat was shining black
Now it's grey and patchy
The sunshine caught in her eyes is from a different time
Had a big yard in Barnegat
She's shambling history
She sleeps on rubber sheets
She's deaf but she listens to me
Our parents got us a dog so we could learn about loss
The slow education
While I'm away on tour she sniffs beneath my door
The panic sets in 'cause nothing's happening
Days of the same old shit but I'll miss all of it
Here's what it felt like
When I was 25
Still had my family
Missed them already
The panic sets in
Though nothing's happened yet
Days of the same old shit
But I'll miss all of it

LifeNet
I'm pretty sick of that dolphin smile
Coney Island is a film between the guardrails
Angels spread in the sky like ink in water
Upper level I am feeling fine with the
Arrow of time
You would piss on my jellyfish sting
I think you'd do just about anything
To be a member of my family
Our future flashing in the sheets of lightning
Living in fear of thunder no one else can hear
I'm sorry
You don't know these people so
What could this mean to you?
They're history and
This won't make a difference
Radiation living for a million years
The candle in your jack-o-lantern
It's what makes you walk and talk and smoke and sing
You're primping in the mirror naked
My reflection in the diamond that your thighs make
Hot in my chest, the queasy rising emptiness
I'm sorry
You don't know these people so
What could this mean to you?
They're history and this won't make a difference
The radiation living for a million years
Get laid in the black sand
There's nothing left to confess
You have now seen all of my ugliness

2 Hip Soul (Floyd's Tomb)
I learned to scream to "Bone Machine"
My windshield spit was glistening
The light refracted beautifully
On Wells Mills road
Smelling every chimney
I swallowed this world in a fever dream
Winding fire roads
I bought me a 2 Hip Soul
The campground in the park
Swastikas carved into the bark
Sesta fell face first into the fire pit
We had to find a new place to drink
Months pass, he's back in class
In a compression sleeve and a mask
Beneath his Carhartt coat
And his John Deere hat
His stoned blue eyes
Snowed in on vicodin
His comeuppance came for the things he did
At Popcorn Park Zoo he clubbed ostriches
We all took to calling him the Phantom
The Phantom of Pinelands High School
But they knew my game
Every rich kid's basement smells the same