1. |
Warm Body
03:22
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Am I just a warm body? When did you last think of me? Do you still wear my old t-shirts? What did you do with “After the Gold Rush” that I gave you for your 19th birthday? Who will you be waking with tomorrow? Am I just a warm body? Am I just nobody?
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2. |
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November 1st in Richmond, Virginia on a five hour layover from seeing my friends in Williamsburg, with their hearts large and smiles warm.
Halloween had come and passed in the neighborhoods, the decorations hanging lonesome on the street curbs.
The styrofoam tombstones, the neon green skeletons, the sinewy pumpkins with their faces carved and wrinkly.
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3. |
Despierta
01:35
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4. |
Melatonin Dreams
02:38
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|
Stephanie, always on my mind.
Always on my mind, Stephanie.
I’m tired all the time.
Misery, I just can’t keep from crying.
I just can’t keep from crying, misery.
Please don’t forget me.
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5. |
To
07:12
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|
Old songs I wrote when I was 17 about my friends and falling in love with girls, I can’t recall those feelings anymore, it’s been too long since those days I’m afraid.
Since then I’ve been in a lot pain, my mind’s been racing like a hurricane. I’m a lot like you, though you might like to think that we’re night and day.
Good friends, I’d like to tell them how I really feel but then they’d know just how lonesome I really am. Heartbreak has taught me not to trust no one, so instead I reluctantly sing.
I used to tell myself “oh don’t it feel so good to put it in a song? To stretch those words out long?” But I don’t know if I have it in me still,
to make those records sell
to make that nylon sing
to let that feedback drone
to have my fingers bleed
to scream until I’m faint
to get lost in the song
to tear my hair out thin
But it’s never done much to kill the pain, after all this time I still feel much the same. Only now She’s left me and it’s Her hand I want to hold when I’m feeling so blue.
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6. |
stop fucking raining
10:08
|
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|
Dialogue from "La Notte"
translation:
When I awoke this morning, you were still asleep. As I slowly emerged from my slumber, I heard your gentle breathing, and through the wisps of hair over your face I saw your closed eyes, and I could barely contain my emotion. I wanted to cry out to wake you up, because you slept so deeply, you seemed almost lifeless. In the half light, the skin of your arms and throat appeared so vibrant, so warm and dry that I longed to press my lips against it, but the thought of disturbing your sleep, of having you awake in my arms again, held me back. I preferred you like this, something no one could take from me because it was mine alone — this image of you that would be everlasting.
Beyond your face I saw my own reflection in a vision that was pure and deep. I saw you in a dimension that encompassed all the times of my life, all the years to come, even the years past as I was preparing to meet you. That was the little miracle of this waking moment: to feel for the first time that you were and always would be mine and that this night would go on forever with you beside me, with the warmth of your blood, your thoughts, and your will mixed with mine. At that moment I understood how much I loved you, Lidia, and the intensity of the emotion was such that tears welled up in my eyes.
For I felt that this must never end, that all our lives should be like an echo of this dawn… with you not belonging to me but actually a part of me, something breathing within me that nothing could ever destroy except the dull indifference of habit, which is the only threat I see. Then you awoke and with a sleepy smile kissed me, and I felt there was nothing to fear, that we’d always be as we were at that moment, bound by something stronger than time and habit.
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7. |
Saudade
00:51
|
|||
|
"All my best memories come back clearly to me
Some can even make me cry, just like before
It's yesterday once more"
|
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8. |
||||
|
I was in my basement with my friends listening to records. Summer after high school, Sun Kil Moon played a show in DC. We were spinning Benji and had some drinks, soon the room was spinning. We were all singing, laughing, crying, all the while grinning, can’t believe how good it felt.
Come the morning after I was so goddamn hungover. Called up my girl, we slept all day, Her head on my shoulder, listening to Kurt Vile in the dark in the same basement. I’ll take these to my grave as my two happiest moments.
Didn’t know it could get so nice, what a time to be alive.
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9. |
||||
|
All my dreams are of the same few memories, the same boys and girls. But I don’t want to be woken up, not anymore, not ever again.
How can I help but romanticize the past when my friends were alive and my girl by my side? Don’t it feel like my life happiness I have used it up, and I can’t get it back?
All I can do is dwell.
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10. |
Ira
11:07
|
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|
The last time I saw An Ton she was leaving Dulles airport with her girlfriend.
They had camping gear and bags strapped on their backs and they asked me if I’d please take a photo of them.
I had spoken with An a few times before about drugs and what it’s like in Massachusetts. She liked to play guitar and had a pretty voice, and I could tell her girlfriend Stacey really loved her.
An passed away on February 5th. I didn’t really know how it made me feel. I thought long about the presence that she had left, and how it was her beanie and glasses that stay with me still.
She was the first person I’d known who’d died, the whole thing left a chill in my bones. I tried talking to Stacey but she said that it’d probably be best to just leave her alone.
The last time I saw Paul Kim we were smoking cigarettes outside my room, sitting on a bench just us two. Talking about old friends and the things that we’d do.
Paul was the first friend I’d made at school, he had dark black hair and was a quiet kid. I’d see him all the time in the hallways, he’d invite me to sit and eat with all his friends.
Paul never came back from winter break, he died from complications following surgery. It never felt the same when I got back, I’d still hear echoes of his voice down the hall.
Oh Paul, though I’d only known you for a few weeks the entire time you were nothing but a friend to me.
The last time I saw my friend Ben we were in my basement watching shows, laughing at some cartoons on Adult Swim and just fucking around until 3 AM.
I’d known him since high school, his voice was deep. He owned a t-shirt of the Beatles (it was A Hard Day’s Night) and he’d wear it each week and godammit I miss him.
The first time I met Ben Stoyen we were seeing a movie with a mutual friend. He’d lean over to me and make me lose my shit with his jokes and observations on the film. There aren’t enough verses in the world to do any justice by him. He’d want to pick me up when I was feeling low, I’d never once asked him to be so kind, he was always just that kind of guy and I promise to keep him forever on my mind.
Ben passed away on April 21st. I didn’t hear until weeks after the fact. Some friend was I to poor Ben, he’d been in the ground for two weeks and the guilt has never left my mind. As I lay pink daisies at this grave the only thing that stood between us was dirt.
He was one of the greatest guys I’d ever meet and I’m proud to say he was one of my closest friends.
Oh Ben, I love you. Don’t worry because you’ll never leave my side again.
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11. |
No Name #3
05:08
|
|||
|
No more bloodstains on the bedsheets, no more letters on the 14th, now my nights are cold and gray.
No more tire marks in the driveway,
oh how I miss the sound and the wrinkles around Her mouth.
Now She won’t talk to me, but She used to say “I love you” in Her sleep.
|
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