We Carry The Feeling

(album: South Somewhere Else - 2020)

Search through the sky for a sign or a simple suggestion
I waited all night but I was fast asleep when it knocked upon my door
It gets lonely here when it's just me and my questions
Jetsam in the ether, pulsar's pull not drawing anymore

I remember it like yesterday
I thought you were lovely I just didn't know what to say
There's all these protocols that get in the way

We were on the edge of seventeen
All we knew to say were things we didn't mean
I still impressed you with my with it seemed

I learned so much from magazines and television
About how men relate through rules to tell them how
Oh I saw the signals with precision
The moments when our habits faltered
Omens of desire unaltered

It wasn't long 'til we were sharing beds
With different dressings on the dreams appearing in our heads
I wanted a lover you a brother instead

Either way these things were hard to name
Never quite knowing did we feel the same
After a while all I could feel was shame

Stef she said I shouldn't see you anymore
Clyde they tried to call me on the phone to say
Some loves are labors lost oh but I'm never sure
There's nothing they could tell me that made me
Ever really want to be alone

And I felt a funny face, was a worthless waste, caught a hopeless case
For sweet boys on sweaty days, don't know what we craved, it remains unspoken
The longing outlived the place, our artistic taste, it outlived the clothes we wore
When I feel uncertain now, I remember how we carry the feeling

But those were stories that we saved for dark
That lost the plot before they'd even start
Except once when we were drunk and then you kissed me hard

And so I faded to a distant star
In the brightest company but everything was so far
Thinking lifetimes pass us, gaseous, things just stay as they are

I tried to chalk it up to expectation
Or believe that what I wanted was just wrong
But now I better understand assimilation
I closed ranks among the ones who felt I
Only part-belonged among them

And I felt a funny face, was a worthless waste, caught a hopeless case
For sweet boys on sweaty days, don't know what we craved, it remains unspoken
The longing outlived the place, our artistic taste, it outlived the clothes we wore
When I feel uncertain now, I remember how we carry the feeling