TIMELINES – The Lyrics – ALEX WRIGHT CONTAINS MULTITUDES

All lyrics written by Alex Wright

American Drama

Float the county streets as we drag the “River City”
Searching for spirits stuck in the middle
Where trees drop their young with the changing of seasons
I could give into fear or set fire to my demons

I feel their eyes burning holes into my back
My bones won’t work anymore
Take my hand as I sink into the deep
Please swear you won’t let go

The years have been slipping
Slurring my speech
Breaking my balance
Stealing my sleep
Like the 10 o’clock train or the knocks of a lonely cat
Just begging to get in to rest her head on my chest

We put our ears to the heart of the city
Like a thief cracking a safe
Found ourselves stuck to the moment
Staggered back in search of our names
Out of our sad American drama
Into light of a new day

We’re the eve of the end
The final shout of wonder
The last call as the lights turn on

By God,
I’ll fight for every breath I take
Scream at death to go to Hell
Grab my hand as we sink into the deep
Please swear you won’t let go

Rocket City Breakdown

Night falls on the Avenue
What’s a sober mind to do
To find love in a war town?

Another Rocket City breakdown

Twist me up like the good old days
Sun kissed sweetness burned to scarred over pain
It was harder than we like to say,
Carving splinters into our changing names

Hanging on by a single thread
I try to remember what Lee said

About appreciating the sun
Once the darkness finally passes

I want to listen to “Ceremony”
And drive these Old Towne streets
Don’t know why I get so nervous
We’re all searching for the same things
Drawling around these Southern streets
Wondering what it might all mean
Just to find it in ourselves
Get too afraid to let it out

Let it out

The future’s unwritten
But I’ve typed for days
Blacked out but literate with too much to say
And not enough when it counts
Got cut off unannounced
Let the city feel my heartbeat with the windows down
Driving back and forth the side streets
Til we run out of town
I want to fall back in
Love with this place again

I want to feel how it used to feel
Not numbness but something real
Like a Lunar Mansion renaissance
I’m a wrecking ball tonight

Just like Eddie said Ronnie said,

“Be my baby,”
Let’s drive these Old Towne streets

I don’t know why we get so nervous
We’re all searching for the same things
Drawling around this Southern scene
Wondering what it might all mean
Just to find it in ourselves

Here Tomorrow / Gone Today

I’ve got this draining habit
These constant conversations
That have or haven’t happened
Imagining ways that I can fail
A stale take
On exaggerated heartbreak
A love I had my chance to taste
Pieced together broken decades
At least I took a tick to heal

I’ve got this quiet magic
It’s hard not to believe in
I mostly try to hide it
So few I trust to tell
Oh well
Oh wait, did I say that or just think it?
(Am I awake or dreaming?)
Am I alone or am I drowning in a crowd again?

It just takes the time it takes
Life is short don’t wait too late
Let out the things you need to say
Here tomorrow, gone today
It just takes it’s time with me
I try to see
The silver lining
Of a life in hiding
Years that I spent pining for my home
Sending signals shining for my own

Netflixistential Crisis

Clothes hang on the line like a crooked grin
Jagged teeth falling loose to the wind
And I can’t sleep
So I’ll binge watch
The fifth season of Lost
Instead of my own thoughts
From this time-tripped tattered day
Hating the way I sound
When I speak out loud
Record my voice to cassette
Reset my out of mind reply

“I’m not sorry, but I’ve checked out
You can leave your name and your number
But I truly doubt
I’ll respond in a timely manner
So if it’s whim or an urgent matter
You’d better go on make your message count”

Days scroll like a VHS
Somebody forgot to rewind
I catch the last scene
Before I leave reality behind
Even though I know the resolution
I’d go back to the start
If I could find the damned remote
Control my racing heart

Steady my frantic fists
Forgive my own freak faults
Before they do me in
Believe in bigger things
Than the moments I feel sorry for myself
Or put my dreams back on the shelf
Well I just might

The dust mites
Have overrun the pantry again
Took everything that wasn’t canned
Nothing left to do
Toss away the tainted food
Clean the mess and then regroup
Order pizza for the week
Pretend I’m not as weak as I feel sometimes
Like today

They say we need level heads
Not desperate dreamers
Here I am,
Such a ruined romantic
But I’ll do my best impression
Of someone who has their mind set
On the future beyond Thursday
Blank boxes on the turned page
That I could fill in sure
But I don’t feel like leaving the manor
When I’ve got MST3K
These same damned songs to play

Before I can find the strength to go outside
Past the chickens
Past our property line
Passed out with flying colors
Off mediocre boxed wine
Before I had the Cabernet courage
To have a casual conversation with myself

About my self doubts
That reveal this Southern twang
This stone cold stunned out drained freight train
That pulls into the station three days late
With no good explanation
You can tender my resignation
This track is more than I can take right now

Ghost to Ghost

I chain-smoked my way across the country
Shot the Silver Bullet through I-80
Every exit takes me further from where I want to be
Traded my full house for a wash of fate
A season spent in sawdust
The taste of salt rich on the roads
The only light this far out has something dirty to its glow

Now I know I can’t go back
To the porches of my past
Ask ghosts to bum a smoke
Talk about what lasts and fades away

Into another Midwest morning
Plenty of time to trace my mourning
To the source
Always yearning for more
To hold me up in the middle of the street
Taking all my cash and keys
To all the sweetness
Even those weeks that led us to leave
This love we shared
I needed to let you go

I drove for miles
I searched for God
In a motel parking lot
What I finally caught
Was the truth that all things end
Either break or still get bent
Never quite the shape we used to be
But some weren’t made to fit
Into movie-scripted endings
Like the rest
I’ll never find again
Head rising
Falling
Rising
Falling
Rising with their breath

We got so far
But the truth
Still gunned us down

What’s the Question?

My next door neighbors’ front yard declares
“WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER!”
but I’m not sure what the question is anymore
It’s become another fact
Like every history book rewritten
and the years we took the Bible at its word
When ours can’t even reach the ears
Of those deaf to understanding
The blood we shed is not another’s
But our own

The sooner that we realize this light that shines within us
The sooner we can make this place a home

1302 / 1609

I poured my blood into the streets and guess expected them to give it back
Now I’m slightly anemic
Somehow drunk on irony

As the sunlight sits in secret shining in some other Southern city’s eyes
Still it’s expected,
I should rise to greet the day

So I’ll drink my coffee
Check the score of the Havoc game last night
As I clear my mind of dreams that drained my sleep way
Distant footsteps in the hallway growing louder
Making messes while everyone’s in bed

The avenue is stuck and stagnant
Still and silent
Like a Sunday morning
When only the faithful have found their way into their cars

Shaky street signs sway like dresses
Dancing in the darkness that they tend to reflect
Entrancing in the moment until I turn to go inside

To shave my face
Clean the house
Every spot on every floor
As I rid my room of the things that still smell like her

My Ultimate Warrior pillowcase I’d left at that house
Books by David Sedaris now back upon my shelf

The longer I linger staring back
At days scattered through the states
The less hope I have in whatever fate the future holds

So I’ll bury the dead
I’ll let them rest
They deserve that much right now
For it won’t be long until they’re back to haunt these restless roads

Time Enough at Last (Tornado Hourglass)

If the stars fall down tonight
I want to be in your arms
Watching the Twilight Zone
As the power blinks out one last
Life is only what you make it
Think I’m seeing it all wrong
Out of touch and out of timelines
Out of ways to write our names
In the sands of an hourglass
In some sun-stroked Southern town
Choking on the heat
Coughing up the way we used to be
Will become
Probably already are

Let’s kiss until this world is not so dark

Smash the amber on the floor
Been stuck for way too long
Bugs the best of me
Begs the question “what’s so wrong
With happiness?
When you’re more than just content
Atop these slipping continents
That sink with no intention
Into the ocean
Oh just how long do we have left
At the altar
In alternate dimensions
Leaving lost love in search of something new
Something true
Something that just washed up
On the shores of an hourglass
In a sun-soaked Southern town
Choking on the heat
Coughing up the way we used to be
Will become
Probably already are

Let’s kiss until this world is not so dark

Train Dodger

I’m finding the bravery in coming home again
Alone after the storm
With nothing more to give
Than waking up
For so long that was too much
To touch a brand new day
In a way that doesn’t make me
Shiver
Quiver
Send shakes right down my spine
Sweep me out with the tide
I choose to rise
Even when I don’t know why

I’m shirking the fantasy of the sweet forever sleep
It will come eventually
Lie down right here next to me
Chisel out my stoney name
When there’s no more work to do
I want to try to see it through
I just want to
Want to keep on
Living
Forgiving
For tripping over time
Forgetting I’ve really been
Trying
Fighting my own self to survive

Even when I don’t know why,
I choose to rise

It’s a battle to go with the flow
It’s a struggle to stay
What if there’s no tomorrow?
There wasn’t one today
I’m on this track
So for better or worse
I’m gonna dodge this train
If it doesn’t stop or swerve off first
I’ll learn to live with the pain

of the wild

I’m a glitch
I’m a portal
Been feeling so immortal
Taunting cemetery skies
Despite dying then returning
There’s so much I’m still learning
To fill this holy yearning
Turn the dial to sweeter times

I’m the front porch bottle rocket
That tried to say, “Goodbye.”
The twist of truth that brought them back
The flicker still lit inside

I’m the dandelion crown
Tangled royalty
The hungry haunt everybody’s got
The cure waiting in the streets

I’m the signs that shake my waking life
The shape of sleep undone
The Heaven I’ve been basking in
The Hell that I’ve outrun

When I wake up
Abundant and free
The taste of lightning lingers
The shock of being seen
The scene of even being
Anything at all
Much less this buzzing energy
Some strange electric call
That I’ll pick up
Forget that I’m me
The dreamer and the dream
This slow dance of discovering
Every single scene of being
Anything at all
Much less this buzzing energy
This strange electric call of the wild

A.D.2

We thought we had the answers
Til the questions all got changed
Sent us sprawled out through the country
Still searching for our names
Living to die inside the valley
Was never in the plan
Despite such peaks we climbed to peek through
Found our way down south again

Tried to drown out all the sadness
Squirming in my skin
By the time I found the bottom
Learned my demons knew how to swim
Backed into an alley
Broken bottle broken heart
Only trust my folks and switchblade
Cut off the world from what I’d forgot

(you can’t forget what you can’t forget)

God only knows
Or figured out
What I would be
No junk
No soul
All by myself

If there ever was a doubt
Oh bless your soul
Oh where’s my soul?
How’s this for soul?

The weight of the years we spent away
Washed up with all our past mistakes
Packs of sophisticated suicide
And I haven’t felt a thing in so damned long
Like a word you say over and over again
Sounds strange and loses all meaning
I’ve re-tread tornadoes so many times
That I’m afraid I’m better off alone

What did I let happen to my heart?

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