1. |
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Sorry for smoking on your grave
You wouldn't be the first one to haunt me no surprise
These boys can't say anything without being on everything
You know it's true you know it's true
So I'll get close but I'll be clear
Everyone feels like a substitute for someone who isn't here at least right now
But I'll get close but I'll be clear
These words can't leave beyond here
And you say "I hate myself everyday"
(me too)
I keep on gaining secrets that I never meant to keep
I wanna be more honest
But I keep on gaining secrest that I never meant to keep
I'll only lie once or twice to you baby
(maybe) (maybe)
So we'll get drunk and so we'll black out
Vomit on the train tracks that's what college is all about
Right, yeah we'll get high and yeah we'll crossfade
Forget our papers due the next day
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2. |
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Let's chainsmoke in the pool steal some 40s from the grocery store
They'll never catch us my brother doesn't work there anymore
I'm trying to pretend I never fell in love with you
I'm trying to pretend I never fell in love with you, with you, with you
Vomit in the algae I say "Walk in a straight line I dare you"
"I'm too queer for that" you laugh and I say "yeah missed you"
I can say with honesty that I miss kissing you
But I can say with honesty that I don't want to kiss you
And I can say with honesty that I wish you did less drugs
I can say with honesty "Dearest friend you've had enough, you've had enough, you've had enough"
You've had enough, you've had enough, hand me the bottle
Let's steal 40s and chainsmoke
We're so edgy we're so edgy seventeen we're both leos
You told me that you never kissed a girl before
That still holds true but it was all still gay as hell
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3. |
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Southern winds not that south yeah
Southern winds in my mouth
The air tastes like blood tonight
These southern boys in their trucks
Why do they care oh so much
Are you a faggot or a dyke?
Fuck you
But why am I so attached yeah
Why am I so attached
I swore I'd never go back
Why am I so attached yeah
Why am I so attached
I never really liked the concept of home
So welcome to Virginia welcome home
My mother doesn't know my real name
Yeah welcome to Virginia welcome home
I don't recognize anyone anymore
That's good
But why am I so attached yeah
Why am I so attached
I swore I'd never go back
Why am I so attached yeah
Why am I so attached
I never really liked the concept of home
Southern winds not that south yeah
Southern winds in my mouth
The air tastes like blood every night
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4. |
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Popped a tire on the way to work and I kept pedaling
It felt like a metaphor for all the ways that I keep meddling
It'd be a lie if I said I didn't miss it
And it'd be fine if I said I didn't wish it
But my entire life is crumbling down on me
So I'll lock this broken bike to that tree yeah
You're looking for home in all the wrong places
Since for kids like us home is built not found
So we'll build a home in our hearts and it's covered in blood
Shaking twice every second but it's all we've got
Hold my hand since I've got yours
I'll take your puluse counting every thump
And you can tell me at the minute mark
And you can count, you can count, you can count
You can count on me
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5. |
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Watch my smoke leave my cigarette rewind let it back in
Maybe I'll smoke this forever maybe I'll learn not to sin
Rewind to being thirteen catholic girl leading the choir
Compared to being eighteen religious something lit on fire
Yeah I'm opening up to god and I'm trying not to live a lie
These things they were compulsive these things kept me alive
Yeah I'm opening up to god I'm trying not to live a lie
These things they were compulsive these things kept me alive
And I'm trying not to die
So I'm cutting off all my hair cutting up all my clothes
I'm looking for ways to exist within this mold
Thinking back to Father Carroll confession every Saturday
I kissed a girl "again?" he sends me on my way
I recite three Hail Marys and tell myself I'm not gay
I've got bigger fish to fry
I've got bigger fish to fry
So I'm hiding in this bathroom cause I can't exist outside the door
Make this shower last forever cause I hate what meets me outside that door
Back to the fists back to the screams back to these people who hate me
Between the fists between the screams my father lies says he doesn't hate me
I was named after him
My brother's name is his
Narcissism
It runs in the family
So I'm opening up to god and I'm trying not to live a lie
These things they were compulsive these things kept me alive
Yeah I'm opening up to god I'm trying not to live a lie
These things they were compulsive these things kept me alive
Rewind to being thirteen catholic girl leading the choir
Compared to being eighteen religious something lit on fire
Watch the smoke leave rewind
I'll be a smoker forever but at least I'll live
I'll be a sinner forever but at least I'll live
I'm learning to live with sin
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6. |
prelapse (alyssa kai)
02:39
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In the morning you were your scars
In the morning yeah you were your scars
The light hit me and the light hit you
Those textures multiplied
Lines you made danced with lines you didn't
All on a body I've never touched
Pardon me pardon me pardon me
But I gathered them into a nest
I gathered them into a nest
In my mind your blossoms shone purple and white
I didn't know you were flowers
I didn't know your flesh carries what my flesh carries
Pardon me pardon me pardon me
But I took them all into my hands
I took them all into my hands
I am so proud of you for what you have made
I am so proud of you for what you have made
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7. |
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Back at the south boston boys school
Where I first learned to play
Couldn't tell right field from little ol' left field but
They had me anyway
Got on base just once in three years
Hitting an ump in the process
And a sac fly out to center field or something
I was flawless
And I was becoming a creature that none of my
Friends from those days understand
Stuffing my sister's old bra in a white cotton button down
Shirt with the sleeves pulled down over my hands
Hiding the lines that I drew in the mirror
My sister said Honey You Throw Like a Girl like the
Backstop my parents kept in their backyard
Where my father'd walk toward me and mutter these words:
"Drag your feet toward the base
Leave your hands above the plate
Drop the bat and let it roll
You'll be leaving home"
And my sister was a Yankee
'Til she moved away from home
And I didn't give two halves of one shit about baseball
'Til she overdosed
You know my parents they ask me how I'm doing
And I don't wanna lie
So I dither to them about the Red Sox bullpen
'Stead of saying I wanna die
It's like being fourteen around bodies that strained against
Bodies condensed to nonsensical images I
Play back on replay reviewing the calls like when
I saw the Spinners in 2006 I
Asked my friend Greg whether he'd ever thought about
Maybe like I don't know being a girl and when
He told me No I knew I was alone
I would draw in the mirror and mutter these words:
"You're on third the score is tied
Signal's made the pitcher winds
As I square catcher sees
You're coming home to me"
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8. |
harm/full (alyssa kai)
02:33
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So you're pissed that I'm self-harming and you know I understand
I know because I live with it not because I planned on it
But something I don't get no matter how I try
Is that even after I told you 'bout it you still get surprised
And try to blame me for the ways that I keep myself together
It's almost like honey you believe It Gets Better
I'm not afraid of my scars and I've got an armful
And who would've bid that trying to live
Could mean something you'd never believe
The only advice that I know how to give
Follow your body when you don't know how to grieve
I'm not saying that it's healthy the thing I do to cope
But don't you think I've tried to find some other things to go on
You talk about survival like self care is something pretty y'know
Some of us are cutting just to keep ourselves from slitting
And if what I've never not done makes you hate me
Then why the fuck do you still date me
Health's not much different from harm and self-care ain't a carnival
And I wanna be rid but I'm trying to live
And it's the only damn thing that relieves
The only advice that I know how to give
Follow your body when you don't know how--
It sucks
And it's unfair
But it happens
Everywhere
You cry more about me than I could cry for myself
You ask me to help you heal from my own mental health
All the time and space that I could take to change my hand
I spend it on consoling you for how fucked up I am
You think you're gonna save her, gonna use your love to tame her
While babe you basically just coerce me in to more emotional labor
Pull me from under your arm you're the one that's harmful
And I won't put a lid on trying to live
And if you don't like it then leave
The only advice that I know how to give
Follow your body when you don't know how to--
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9. |
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I get off the greyhound round 9:45
Twelve hours after the stop in St. Cloud
I hold off the cold with a bottle of wine
And spin up some stories to read you aloud
In the back of my mind it's alive and it's evil
With whispering history withering harm
But I throw you a smirk when I finally see you
And fall from the station and into your arms
People don't keep enough secrets these days
Or the secrets we keep aren't enough to inspire
We keep up and catalog all of the ways
Our fantasies fail to fulfill our desires
But follow me back to the cabin I live in
Find us together let us commune
Our fantasies can't hide the fire that's within
Our surfaces never will shine like the moon's
And when it's finally over we're lying in bed
And we're both trying to know that we've done the right thing
And we're sad in the heart and we're sick in the head
And we both wanna know what the future will bring
I'll whisper the secret and you'll understand
And the horror will spread across both of our faces
To settle down deep on our dearest of plans
We are celebate beings in constant embraces
Take us back to the churches our grandmothers made
Take us back to our childhood broken and gone
Take us back to the saints that we knew when we prayed
Take us back to the clouds that we saw in the dawn
They are done plotting they're starting to rise
The death of your friends the rise of your foes
but I've planted a powerful spell in your eyes
To nurture your body wherever it goes
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10. |
postlapse (alyssa kai)
04:07
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My hair is in tangles my body is sore
I sleep by a box fan I mumble my words
I wonder how far away you are gonna get
Cause I thought I knew you but I guess I don't know nothing yet
I tour to Harrisburg to Kalamazoo
I tour to your house and I try to find you
And they're very polite here they welcome me in
But I don't do nothin' but wait for my life to begin
Cause my friend is in therapy my friend is in Spain
My friend just OD'd on the Clarion plains
My friend is driving to Clarion soon as she can
To meet with her friends from Chicago and all of their friends
Some months from now you'll be a show
And you'll see me and ask me "why'd you have to go
And why are you back here where will you be next"
But I'll tell you honestly I don't think I ever left
I tour to New Brunswick out west to the Springs
I tour with whatever my body my bring
And [I] play for the people I hope they understand
But none of them know what to do when I tell them my plan
Cause my partner's in Agawam my partner's in pain
My partner is leaving her house by the bay
My partner just married their partner (also their wife)
Til death do them part til one of us ends our own life
My body's in tangles my hair isn't sure
To cinch itself tighter or cut itself more
And I wish I didn't wake up this morning here in my bed
I thought I knew you but I guess I don't know nothing yet
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alyssa kai Greenfield, Massachusetts
writer and performer living in western massachusetts.
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