my careless contagion

    It was a one-two punch mourning the loss of two girls at once some days it felt like the pain would last forever I'm better now at least, some days I am I cry a lot: when I'm alone in my apartment when I've driving when I read books when I watch movies sometimes at work if I can hurry away in time always before I fall asleep and sometimes when I wake up I've lost everything hit rock bottom have wallowed in it have swallowed it become it I don't know why I persist I guess because I'm the only one who can live this life someone has to do it Is it true what they say when you hit rock bottom the only way to go is up? Now is when I find out.

I broke something I can't fix It's gone beyond my little world like cracks on a windscreen they've spread to you and those you love the most It's permanent like a stain it eats at me like acid rain My face in the mirror can no longer hide it I look away My hands are busy but my heart is hurting I can't help what I've done Not now anyway If I had a way to repair all of this I would rise up this moment feel for those cracks spread out to you and mend them There's an unspeakable pain I've sent into your world an unspeakable sin I've spawned because I wanted too much If I could go back to the moment I made that decision to let you into my dying world I would have kept that door closed Whatever befalls me will befall me this I'm certain but I've touched your life with my careless contagion like some sort of dead man walking I've contaminated hearts and minds foreve...

*When Face to Face released "Ignorance is Bliss" in 1999, they bundled it with a little album called "So Why Aren't You Happy?", and these two albums had a polarizing effect on their audience that effectively killed the band. As Trevor Keith, the singer of the band, explained, without recording the albums, they would have broken up anyway, simply because they had to be made. For a band that was known more for being fun, this album shocked their audience. And, I have to say, it was a completely ballsy move. These albums are the saddest things I've ever heard on a CD. It shocked me when I first heard them, but I fell in love with them because they were so honest. As for being honest, when I listen to this song, all I can hear is what I saw coming all those years – the dissolution of my relationship. This dynamic played out year after year until I couldn't do it anymore. As I sit alone in my tiny apartment, I realize that I'm not the monster I tho...

*This song is clearly about the end of a relationship and the effects of that on the children. This is very much where my mind goes at this moment. My son is trying hard to not let any of this affect him, what's happening in his world. I knew there would be a price to pay for leaving my wife, but I never wanted my son to pay that price. He's trying so hard to be strong. I know his world is in turmoil. Even though I feel like he's been taken care of in amazing ways, I still can't help but feel shattered by what he's going through. When he goes to bed, I'm not there to say goodnight. When he cries out for me in the night, I am not there. When he wakes in the morning, I'm nowhere to be found.  When he's sick, what comfort am I?  My son, what have I done to you?* Precious and fragile things Need special handling My God what have we done to You? We always try to share The tenderest of care Now look what we have put You through Things get damage...

Walking from empty room to empty room I feel the full weight of what I've wrought bearing down on me Walking that lonely trail brought tears to my eyes there's a last time for everything and a last time for us Remember when we walked together our son on my back down these same paths? he ate his first wild raspberries here and shared them with us This place saw us come and bid us farewell it remains but we have changed for "we" are no more My heart is broken my eyes have endless tears for the measure of our lives together here This house held us together for these three years.

It's been a long road I thought I knew things but I don't know a thing Older and wiser, sure but not wise enough I never saw this great disaster looming What made me think this time would be any different what made me think I could shed my skin I've written thousands of lines to some strange god listening somewhere but immobile, mute I should burn these pages let them rise like incense on the breeze let them rouse the slumbering god let them burn in its nose, speak in its ear Words are weak, I know words are nothing, really just sounds we lend meaning to just another weary wind blowing to and fro These lines are impregnated with pain heavy with guilt, with blame, with shame with the fullness of knowing that I have lost all How many times does a man have to pick up the pieces put his pants on, wash his face every morning like what happened didn't really happen How many times do I h...

I remember her and her smile it was so weak and she was so sick She was beautiful in dresses, jeans jacket, underwear or nothing at all And those eyes they lit up my world that perfect smile could captivate me forever I couldn't get enough she was all mine for just a moment but what a moment it was Wrapping my arms around her for the last time I hoped against all hope I would see her again I'd take reality over fantasy any day if she could just be mine I let her go but I'll remember her one last smile.

Well you only need the light when it's burning low Only miss the sun when it starts to snow Only know you love her when you let her go Only know you've been high when you're feeling low Only hate the road when you're missing home Only know you love her when you let her go And you let her go Staring at the bottom of your glass Hoping one day you'll make a dream last But dreams come slow and they go so fast You see her when you close your eyes Maybe one day you'll understand why Everything you touch surely dies Cause you only need the light when it's burning low Only miss the sun when it starts to snow Only know you love her when you let her go Only know you've been high when you're feeling low Only hate the road when you're missing home Only know you love her when you let her go Staring at the ceiling in the dark Same old empty feeling in your heart Love comes slow and it goes so fast Well you see her wh...

All those miles of text between us all those songs I played that spoke for me All that time -- 21 years! and you finally put it together you finally figured it out what my love looks like I poured my heart out for you my lifeblood too my time, my talents my everything Only to be spurned only to be burned beaten, left behind well, not this time Our time has run out our morning has turned to night and our night to this What is it driving me this way? what was it that got in our way? I don't know but it isn't my love, dear.

All their faces become one all their lies and all their eyes bore into me I am frozen stalled rejected once again standing still and wondering Who keeps hitting "repeat" on this track who keeps stut-stut stuttering their lines over and over again I have one last shot one last chance to love but I am shuttered out of town out to lunch I want that one woman I can mesh with talk with, feel with shake off the dust of this town with and in the end, smile with But they all have agendas I hide my heart cover my mouth censor my thoughts and sleep with one eye open What I see is that girl waiting for me but the question is does she see me? Will she line up like the rest raise her weapon aim at my chest? Sadly, I believe I know the answer.

There's something about this something about me something about you that threatens to break me in two There's something on the wind getting closer filling me with excitement filling me with dread Is it you, my perfect coming to me at last is it your heart I hear crying out like mine This is an epic thing I am not a man of renown I am not a beast I am just flesh  I've run out of words run out of hope and other things  that look like it Here I sit alone again unable to move unable to breathe If God sees me if God hears me if anyone sees me if anyone hears me Please understand I am just a man broken now now less than a man There is nowhere to go nothing to do but sit and wait stirring inside My face shows my age my hands show my rage my heart shows my pain and humiliation But my feet cannot walk away. 

Pictures, postcards notes, birthday cards letters soaked in yearning thousands of miles of text back and forth forever we've talked through distance, through tears You were my everything and I tried to be yours you were the rain that watered my fields of hope and acres of thorns I longed for you so many nights I begged you to remain only mine but you were always swept up in someone else's storm You had no mercy on my heart and now I hear your voice crying, pleading have mercy -- one last time Oh, how you've torn me and you intend to tear me one last time you intend to break me forever like you used to do all the time I'm so broken I can't even respond I'm making excuses but we both know how this ends I don't know why it hurts so much leaving like this I can't bear doing you how you've done me If I die tonight It's all the same if I run through hell no one will catch me I'm ...

Maybe you see me as a brute a monster in search of flesh Maybe you fear me my appetites my passion my desire My love, I am just a man in love with just one woman You're my perfect my dream my everything my whole world If you could see my heart you'd know I'm all yours for better or for worse I want to hold you seep into you become a part of you forever You are my one and only the only star in my sky since the beginning we were made for each other Let me hold you, love do you feel my heart on you? does it speak to you? cry out for you? One day I'll be gone I want the world to know you were mine before I run out of time Darling, I fear the end is near The night is spent so let me hold you, dear If this is all I have -- this empty bed -- then let me imagine you here filling my last perfect moments with your peace.

Driving nowhere — this could be the metaphor for you and me — rudderless, lost, parting ways You aren't talking but I can tell your face is staring out your window that tells me everything You're crying again and I'm driving we'll do this as we've always done and then never again We may as well be listening to Samiam's Clumsy, hungover, tired and waiting for our time to begin We waited so long we fought for this and this, well, this is not what we wanted We're strung out on insomnia regret depression and a very bitter winter These hills baited us these skies welcomed us these dark nights lit up with stars they cradled us The radio always plays the saddest songs and love songs that don't mean a thing right now Every song sounds like a dirge every note like pinpricks of melancholy Yet, we drive we sit silently we rehearse our lines ...

She's late but I know she's coming I cower, my breathing labored She has tears in her eyes but I know she intends to do what she intends to do This is it the moment I've been dreading she cries but there's murder in her eyes I love her but she will slay me I will cease to exist when she betrays me It is acceptable this sacrifice of love for the greater good for the love of many I will perish but she will walk away hurting, broken, bleeding forever scarred With my blood dripping from her hands and streaming across the floor she leaves me for the last time I am silent now in no pain my eyes focused on nothing my heart still My lover, my friend, my perfect to you there's nothing left to be said because I now know this is the end.

Eat, sleep, breathe and keep doing the same Eat, sleep, breathe until you remember your name and all the things that used to matter There's something familiar in this pain it's my heart giving up rolling over and dying every day is the same tragedy What makes it beat what makes it care what makes it continue without a reason? It's the whisper of something on the wind in the trees beyond my reach It's hope that this won't last forever it's believing  that I'm nearly there Dear God, remember my frame I am but dust here for a moment and never again I keep hoping I keep waiting I keep repeating what I have to repeat Up comes the sun and on goes my facade another day another lesson in heartbreak.

She always came to me as a whisper in the night in the rain in my moments of deepest pain She was my forever my stranger my saint my permanent stain Whatever happened to us – shattered and twisted us – through the broken years, the hungry march of time? You were ungraspable almost unreal you created us strangled us put us to sleep When you left me I died my greatest death you came back to me expecting open arms You showed me what it was like to love and die at the same time you made it clear my destiny was to always be broken, broken, broken My dear muse your soft voice has faded you left me for the last time I see your dark love for me as a lesson learned too late My lover, my friend you broke me and leaving you has broken me again My muse, my dear muse This unconscionable decision has killed your killing time your feast of hate on my heart Your hungry eyes that only wanted more grow d...

I held you today and it felt like a thousand times before you -- falling to pieces and me -- unable to catch them We are broken never to be put back together we are liars if we believe anything else I was never any good for you but I always tried I loved you with all my might you were the storm I was always chasing What I feel and what I felt are not the same anymore there is a strangeness in hugging you -- almost a panic like when you've lost your house key I can't ever go back home what's left of it will never feel the same There's always been that sadness behind my eyes you didn't put it there but you fed it diligently You and I were a beautiful disaster held together by duct tape and memories, always trying and always failing to remember why we made sense I didn't destroy us I just let us go and all those falling pieces found their home scattered around us I knew a little girl lost but she was...

Your back is turned but I can see your face in the mirror Your eyes are closed but your whole world is open to me Pressing myself on you is like a dream come true The only thing that takes away my ache is crashing into you Girl, you're everything I need right now and I know I'm everything you want we're trading spit and trading paint When I first laid eyes on you I never knew we'd go down this way -- mean, like animals My hands are possessive my mind is full of adjectives my mouth whispers expletives and you make the best noises I want this to last forever but it's just as well this kind of forever would bleed me dry When your eyes open and I'm past spent we carry on like nothing happened we smile at ourselves in the mirror before we say goodbye.

There's something between us and it's my heart still beating lying on the floor It's out there, unattached it's untethered, untouched waiting still beating What I always wanted was the look in your eyes that love beaming out of them That's the look that's the feeling that's what I've been missing That's what my heart was waiting for There's this little voice telling me, "put it back, put back your heart" But it waits for you still beating still clinging to hope on the floor between us Where can I go? Nowhere What can I say? I've said it all I wait for you and my heart waits for you in this dark place growing dimmer When they put me together they forgot some things like all the parts that tell me I should walk away But I'm here today here tomorrow and my heartbeats I will follow.