It's an honor to be anybody's anything, and I was your best friend I was your Labrador, bounding up and touching down at your ankles You were my door to pry Open wide and make white light out of your troubles Make a note to myself: When I grow up, I will never desert you I could never truly hurt you And if you sense my divergence, I will shower you in tribute And I hope when we land next to the corpses of our wives, it will be known by every stone that I've loved you all my life You're no stranger in my heart I've left your room just as it was and you can let yourself in when you come home again because you were my best friend

Where have you been? I've been worried sick I've licked clean the plates And inhaled the leftover cake It was in your fridge it wasn't safe Throw inhibition in my rations Away, away, away I eat my weight in the rarest steak Increase in size Grow limp inside You talk to me about self-control I lost that years ago When I first lost myself When there was no one left to hold Something round and soft To take the edge off Something thick and cheesy and mean To live out obesity dreams It was just resting on your menu Someone had to buy it someday I abort my portion And shovel it away I eat my weight in the rarest steak Increase in size Grow limp inside You talk to me about self-control I lost that years ago When I first lost myself When there was no one left to hold When I carried her books in exchange for dirty looks When Bridget's blood trickled down and her body shook You talk to me about self-control I lost that years ago When I first lost myself When there was no one left to hold Where have you been? I've been replacing you

Would it upset you if the one goal that I could see to Is to beat you? Impress you? I've had it planned, and the first step required me to stop Being a hand on your watch a thin black limb ripped off I haven't told you about the past 5 years of my life, have I? I can only tell you through lyrical clues You tell me yours through passive Post-Its on my door And when you sleepwalk and snore Paternal matador I made you something I made you something that fits I made you one thing I made you one thing, this is it I can't relive those frustrated moments in the basement Begging me to get pissed; to raise my little fists And leave a trail of fallen football players in my wake I was 12 then Fresh from 11 I can't explain how surprised I was to see where you work Far from heroic, rife with "Somebody's gotta do it" cicatrix You were living out of boxes and emotional bottles And nobody there cared Matching monitor glares I made you something I made you something that fits I made you one thing I made you one thing, this is it I hope you wear it on the sleeve of your shadowtime suit I hope you wear it on the sleeve of your shadowtime suit If not, then this: I was 15 I felt 6 And you were just my height It was cold It was nude cold And you spoke like you were typing while talking My mouth filled with snow I wept on my mother's pillow And I vowed: "I do not get mad I do not get mad I do not get mad I do not get angry, angry I do not get mad I do not get mad I get even, get even I get even, get even I get even, get even, get even" I made you something I made you something that fits I made you one thing I made you one thing, this is it I hope you wear it on the sleeve of your shadowtime suit I hope you wear it on the sleeve of your shadowtime suit I love you regardless

My new room Will be pulled into completion soon White brick and bloody-pulp maroon A taut afterthought sweat cocoon My new room, my new room My new cling-wrap routine Wake up to Mark blasting Siamese Dream I hear my Mayfair steed galloping I go to work, she makes my caged bird sing Wipe the sweat, wipe the sweat from my forehead Reverse route 7 dollars for a roundabout When it comes to money, I will mask my doubts That I'm a spider up its waterspout Tear my limbs, all 8 limbs off their hinges Drop lbs Walk with athletic shorts and short-sleeve steeze Mammary mogul; I wear these tight tees To shed some light on insecurities Oh my God! I've created a monster I wasn't crying, but I couldn't stop I'm passing a threshold from big boy to tenfold Tearing my larynx and missing my parents I've got a mattress with no moral compass I roll on my axis when she leaves me sleepless My new room Last night it spelled impending doom The carpet crawling up my feet and hands With 2 buzzards for a ceiling fan I wake up, I wake up to a phone call My good friend is wondering when I will see her again I tell her I would cancel any plans To stay distracted 'til the birds descend They will caw, they will claw, they will watch me grow up They will caw, they will claw, watch me grow up too fast I wasn't crying, but I couldn't stop Watch me grow, watch me grow, watch me grow up too fast I'm passing a threshold from big boy to tenfold Tearing my larynx and missing my parents I've got a mattress and no moral compass I roll on my axis when she leaves me sleepless I wasn't crying, but I couldn't stop

There's eggshell in my hair As I walk down your stairs The rest is on your bed And my tongue tastes like your flower's pollen My year as a baby horse My legs are sea legs And all you can do is laugh All you can do is laugh You are just at the height The way I perceived angels when I was 9 I'm only being sincere It's just I love you too much, and I'm sorry things have to get weird Afterbirth on my shirt Spinning "Tom Traubert's" Waltzing Matilda But you don't want some Small Change ballad So I'll shut of his blues I'd do anything to please you My lover, my golden calf Carving my epitaph You are just at the height the way I perceived angels when I was 9 I'm only being sincere It's just I love you too much, and I'm sorry things have to get weird Panting's all that I know When I follow you home like a dog that's been given too much hope And hope is all I can feel When we sing Anything And as I untangle my curls, I don't regret you as a lover, I regret having made you my world And the heat beneath my shoes And the spirit keeps me running away from you Are you mad? Do you feel blame? If I remain my normal hyperactive self, will you yell? Will you call? Will I answer?

I was 14 when I woke up To find an ocean in my bed I hoped my dreams were just that sexy But I'd pissed in it instead "How anomalous of me!" I thought, and washed the sheets at dawn But really, I wasn't that shocked And with the dryer door then drawn, I smelled inside and it was fresh And so was I, because at school, no one had asked how I had slept I was predictably unkempt My cracking of jokes had been revoked by the adult kept inside He didn't want to be held back By my permanent urge to freeze myself at 5 It goes to show Though I ache and I pose, these pains are barely ever growing pains They're usually from standing on my toes to see our genesis When you were just a speck that dotted one dot on my landscape No potential in effect You were a set of angel's eyes A picture and a page A challenge then requiring me to act above my age I wore button downs and blacks and browns No funny tees or WalMart jeans I built myself a metal self With light and iridescent sheen I fed myself my former selves So it would get the taste And after months of quiet persuasion, you inched nearer to my face I got so very good at kissing you, that everything I ate tasted like salt against your sweet lips, and I lost a little weight But then I rusted out my metal self And some just rusted off 'Til some pink protruded through the holes Suppressed and soft With that revealed, my human nature seeped through every corner, 'til It flooded my behavior Though you claimed that you would love me still, You had to seek communion In the arms of the responsible And not in my possessive claws I then fell of your pedestal And though you picked me up Whenever you missed my cocoon You always found yourself in tears When I walked to the bathroom You're now an ocean out of armspan You tell me not to fret Although I am no longer your man Or your boy, better yet I'm left a baby in the snow A squashed tan seed I'm a restless little hummingbird Who eats and eats and eats I'm Napolean who's posing Like he's Freddie Mercury Because music and flamboyance Might make me less slovenly But I hate all my heroes For the beauty that emits from them When the front row at my shows Always leaves covered in spit and phlegm I'm sick 'cause I don't sleep I don't sleep because I'm sick I cough and sneeze, collapse and wheeze While my food-baby kicks So girls, it isn't hard to be my solar system's sun Just play-pretend me, break and bend me Tell me I'm your only one But now I'll give up hope for something someday soon They'll sense my fear and desperation While the vulture in them crows and croons Externalize my love To some satellite who might bounce back My piddly little signal With each and every ray intact Someone to fall into fields with With the bugs and snakes and chilly grass And laugh until we weep Until we're flipping like our hourglass Someone who keeps me up, but not because of fear someone who won't just leave If I whispered in their ear: "If you were paralyzed, I'd condense the planet's beauty bedroom-size If you had absent eyes, I'd try and bring out their more lustrous side If you were struck blind, I'd sit and read to you most every night If you were deaf and mute, I'd just stay in the house and look at you." If you called me and said "Anthony, I've got to leave, and don't go chasing me," I'd live in stoic, heavy calm but I could never write another song about loving somebody, honestly