it was probably nothing but for a moment there i lost all sense of feeling

(album: honeybee table at the butterfly feast - 2022)

It starts with your body in motion through
The still cool water of a hotel pool
You were the most beautiful thing that I'd ever seen
In a lifetime of suburban hauntings and strip mall therapy

There are two things that could still come between
The smell of vinegar and burning leaves
Like one of those kitschy finger-traps
I know it's killing me and I keep coming back
Through collapsing Midwest towns concerned
With factory farming, prison labor, ten thousand dying birds
And now that I've finally got the punchline right
Suddenly the joke's not funny from the stage at night

The quiet war I've lost so many times
Nightmares of sleeping pills and Clonidine
My lawyer calls when I am driving home
Collection notices from the hospital

I fell in love with you the first time in spring
So it's only right we're leaving now the leaves have changed
And when I hear someone near me calling out your name
I turn around like nothing's changed