VOWS (2017)

What was i doing

What was I doing

Playing with your heart

What was I thinking

I wasn’t thinking from the start

And if I ever get the chance to love you right

And I hope I do, I hope I do

And if I ever have a hand to hold so tight

I hope it’s you,  I hope it's you

What were you doing

Giving me your love

What were you hoping

Were you hoping I would jump

And if you ever get the chance to love so true

I hope it’s right, I hope it’s right

And if you ever feel the sun shine down on you

I hope it’s bright, I hope it’s bright

You were always hiding from me

I was hiding too

Tiny corners big enough to whisper

I loved you

What were we doing

Sitting in the flames

When we were burning

Calling out the other’s name

And if I ever get the chance to make it right

I hope I’m kind, I hope I'm kind

And if you ever get to stand tall black and white

Oh I won't mind, oh I won't mind

Honey I do

I was just dreaming today

About that Salinger story we both loved

And how I poured over each page

And combed it for clues about how to get closer to you

I was just dreaming today

About all the times that I crept in the kitchen

And you cooked up something to say

And I scoured for dirt on the floors just to sweep them again

Little did I know that after some time

I’d be sitting here wishin for things that aren’t mine

Cause I want you

Oh honey I do

Oh I want you

As much as it can be true

Much as I try

Good as I lie

I want you

I was just dreaming tonight

About that time that you told me we’d marry

And I didn’t put up a fight

Cause Paris is lovely and so were the things that you said

I was just dreaming today

About how we never could talk without shouting

Obsessing about being right

And how it would feel when we both gave it up in the end

Little did I know that though it’s been long

I‘d be here on my knees conjuring you in song

Cause I want you

Honey I do

Oh I want you

As much as it can be true

Much as I try

Good as I lie

I want you

And you called me Zelda, said you were F. Scott

Oh but I’ve done my research, I haven’t forgot

Oh the end of the story, the end of the plot

When their love lost the war to the vices they fought

Oh but how are you, what are you doing this hour

I am finding almost impossible now

To forget all the things that I couldn’t allow

To escape from my lips, manifest in a shout

That I want you

Oh honey I do

Oh I want you

As much as it can be true

Much as I try

Good as I lie

I want you

Vows

What is to have and to hold

If I have not kept you close to my fold

What is in sickness and health

If I have not told you how I felt

What if the earth’s just the earth

What if there’s no rebirth

We’re just stuck in our firsts

Stuck in our worsts

What does till death do us part mean

Cause honestly darling I’ve got to go

What is for rich or for poor

cause there’s so much more that I need to know

What if the things that I want

aren’t the things that I want

when the evening has gone

and the morning has come

when the morning has come

Oh how do you choose

How do you choose me

How do you choose

Knowing you might lose me

What is for better or worse

Cause from what I have heard there’s a lot in between

What is from this day forward

If everything onward is in the unseen

What if I whisper my vows

What if they are not loud enough

What if they drown

What if I can’t be found

Oh how do you choose

How do you choose me

How do you choose

Knowing you might lose me

What are the vows that I’ve said

Cause the ones in my head I can’t seem to get out

What if I do but I can’t

And I won’t ever find a way back to your heart

Roll with me

I drank the fire, I bled the flames

I woke the town at midnight screaming out your name

Before your name, oh I was afloat

Now I’m a paperweight been tethered to your boat

And I can remember the feeling of choice

It threw a punch louder than any other voice

But the past’s an engine, memories fuel

And I keep prayin someone siphons me from you

They tell me girl they broke the mold when they made you

But I just want to grow old in age with you

I’m not such a rolling stone as I’m made to be

Won't you roll with me

The things I carry may never leave

Oh they may burrow like a burrow till they bleed

Like the way you loved me, and the way I tried

And the way I couldn’t and quite never did know why

So I scan the night sky, searching for rain

To come and pour down, rid the good land of your name

And I think of wise men comin from east

And wish that star had never beckoned me to thee

They tell me girl they broke the mold when they made you

But I just want to grow old in age with you

I’m not such a rolling stone as I’m made to be

Won't you roll with me

Cause it’s a hard thing living inside the walls you built

The weight might kill if it crumbles

And it’s a battle to climb down all these stairs

My steps are spare and I’m tumblin down to the well,

To the well

Where I fell

Where I felt you near

They tell me girl they broke the mold when they made you

But I just want to grow old in age with you

I’m not such a rolling stone as I’m made to be

Won't you roll with me

Wild things

I've never been too good at letting go

I keep letters that you wrote me in a box under my window

And I sometimes read them in the dim light of the evening

Wonder what it was that made you feel like leaving for the wild things

I've got a neighbor she is 85

She said honey I don’t feel like I am living life

I’m just existing

Waiting on the next big snow covered morning

I said Barbara don’t you lean into despair

I have come in through the garden and there’s signs of life out there

among the wild things

I've never been too good at growing old

Every turning of the year feels like it creeps in with the cold

But you remind me that there's beauty in expanse

Will I remember how to free my legs to dance

among the wild things

And when I’m old and when I’m grey

When I’ve all my days behind me and I’ve all my words to say

Would you lay me down to rest among the meadows

Watch me smile as I leave you and I’m headed for the wild things

And when the darkness comes

Tell me where I’m from

And how I might return to the peace

of the wild things

And when my body's in the land

And my soul has burst wide open with its unfettered plans

I will know I was somebody that was loved

And I'll rest easy knowing I have seen enough

of the wild things 

Dirt

Kicking up the same old dirt

That gathered round my mother’s mother’s skirt

I’ve come to find that in my mind

Is half of what they’ve left behind

And half of what I hope to find

Cause I’m a new creation born

Of generations weathered and well-worn

And deep in every child’s face

There lives an old familiar place

Some well-preserved, some well-erased

And all these things are creeping through the earth

A blackened brand of birth

And firsts are never firsts

When you’re inheriting the dirt

And one day when I’ve tamed the wild

And summoned of the earth a little child

I’ll fail to save her though I’ll try

And she’ll forgive me as she cries,

My face is yours and yours is mine

And all these things are creeping through the earth

A blackened brand of birth

And firsts are never firsts

When you’re inheriting the dirt

And sometimes when I’m all alone

I close my eyes and hear my mother’s tone

As she held me in her arms at night

And whispered that we’d be all right

We hurt and also we delight

And that’s the thing about this life

It's Okay

Woke up today to find that I was grown

Oh the seeds that I've been sowing

Seems they have all been sown

Woke up today to find that I had changed

All the thoughts I swore I'd never lose

Had all been rearranged

And it's okay

It's okay

It's okay

It's finally okay

Yesterday's fears were thick like August heat

Oh the shackles they kept growing 

Creeping up around my feet

Yesterday's pain weighed heavy on my heart

I was caught up in a standstill

Waiting for my life to start

And it's okay

It's okay

It's okay

It's finally okay

I know what tomorrow holds is still unknown

And no matter if I sing it so

I'm never fully grown

I know that tomorrow's plans are still unseen

And that life can still occur in the here and nows and in between

And it's okay

It's okay

It's okay

It's finally okay

And it is well, it is well

It is well, it is well with my soul

God Knows

Get your mouth out my dreams

Don't you know you don't live here no more

Don't you know that I mean what I say, as I hammer all 95 nails to the door

And God knows I've tried

God knows I'm tired

God knows what I don't know

Get your eyes out my gaze

Can't you see that I'm hurting still

I ain't got any trick plays, darlin

Don't know that I ever will

And God knows I've asked

God knows I've wallowed and watched the time pass

God knows what I don't know

Get your breath off my cheek

Can't you feel that I'm cryin

Can't you hear that I cannot speak

When I do I'm just lyin

And God knows I'm spent

God knows I've wasted every last cent

God knows what I don't know

Like how are you doing

And where am I going

And how does a person

Carry on when they're broken

Cause there's no rewinding

Only painful reminding

Of the harvest moon glowing and its shadow so blinding

Oh where do I turn now

I looked right and got left out

Looked to heaven got left down

Oh God knows I've been let down

God knows I'm free

At least waiting to be

God knows that I'm hoping to God that you're missing me