Coughed up a Cufflink

Coughed up a cufflink, said I swallowed my rings as I slept on the floor, I was lying, of course, that never even happened in a dream

The head spins and the nosebleeds, the cars crashed and the stars seen, did you hear the part where I said that I stayed up all night but still missed every flight? Did you see the deficit displayed on my sleeve?

And what my song said was, "Throw open all the windows, let the night in, step and climb every rung, summon storms from your lungs, let the hummingbirds nest in your throat"

But what that meant was, I slept late, wasted the entire day, all my energy spent contemplating myself, now I'm hungry and everything's closed

Always in the back of my mind, there's a familiar voice muttering

Reading from a ledger of time, constantly there to remind me and incapable of forgetting

On a drive day through the Plains States, eight hundred miles moving one way, conversation's dried up, even the music just buzzes now, there's nothing left to do but look ahead

A memory gets unlocked, little dead bird on the sidewalk and how beside it you placed the cardboard sign that you made that said, "I'm happier this way"

And what your sign meant, I ignored then because I cared so much more about having a girlfriend than understanding the person you were or the dictum of hurt that you learned in the house where you grew up

So in the moment, I barely noticed, but now I can decode it, it said, "Do you honestly think you somehow factor in? I can't even see you

There was a time when this violence was something I ran from

But now we're inextricably linked, if we're even different things, I can't wait until I'm like this bird, I'll be so much happier"