SEA DEBRIS
You used to step into my studio
see the palette across my thighs
You’d think I was painting landscapes
then you’d see the look that was in my eye
I’m mixing up that burgundy
gotta get that tint just right
Well, you knew what that color meant
someone was gonna die

I’ve got the temperament of a seashell
I’ll sit till I’m washed up or ground away
Well, I am delicate and multihued
But still I’m empty
Because the things that lived inside of me
got restless and went to sea
Iridescent sand in the palm of your hand
where this boy used to be

Now I’m jumpy like a liquid crystal
a piece of quartz performing its quick shake
I don’t gears or springs or a glowing screen
to rustle me awake
Some people they use shadows
or slender hands across a face
You won’t catch me waiting for a bell to chime
I tell time by the way I ache

And now I love you most each morning
though some evenings I grow cold
It’s not an early frost or a whiskey rocks
that sets my thermostat so low
It’s just some afternoons it dawns on me
one day we’ll be so old
I need a kiss that’s like a campfire
if you could be so bold


ROT UPON THE VINE
The fat fruit hangs from branches
of trees with roots so deep
The reddest ones are highest, brightest, so pristine
The reddest ones are just beyond your reach

So, throw your limbs outstretching
The low ones waste your precious time
Know what you can carry
Those can rot upon the vine

If I don’t make a run for it
I guess I never will
I’ll press my nose to window frames
watch life between their wooden frames
and die upon the sill

So, throw your limbs outstretching
The low ones waste your precious time
Know what you can carry
Those can rot upon the vine


RED BALLOON
Well, I wonder what you remember
as I turn the heater up to high
There’s a certain change in scenery
where white snow becomes black ice
Then the pine trees turn to plains
the clouds fracture and relent
My memories are thawing
but they’re rotten with regret

It pays to catch a fraying rope
You can’t check your knots too soon
Even blue skies can get so boring
but you’re my red balloon

Now you’re basically a bobby pin
that I wear on my lapel
Forgotten till I feel you there
and I’m struck much like a bell
Some scenic stretch of interstate
your eyes like a national park
Some moments I keep like postcards
but our years have all gone dark

It pays to catch a fraying rope
You can’t check your knots too soon
Even blue skies can get so boring
but you’re my red balloon

I guess I’ll always love you
Is a line that’s never spoke too soon
Even blue skies can get so boring
but you’re my red balloon