Blister Box

Twenty years later, what if I have missed my shot
Alone out on the beach, where I sit and watch
As my worried thoughts grow heavier than cinder blocks
I never should have put them back into their blister box…

The flower children speak in tongues, I don't understand
They drop acid, see the planets, sleep out in their parents' vans
I know that I don't give a damn, but I’ve still gotta sit and watch
As everything goes back into its blister box

An old man is crying on the subway right next to me
He reads the new testament and highlights the entries see
I feel bad for him, but hear music in my mind
He looks familiar, I think I see the future in his eyes

Someday I’ll be there, on my birthday with a prayer for my mistakes
As I tally mark my failures with the candles on my cake
I lived a quarter century longer, and with flowers in their hands
My friends will mourn the way I always turned my hours into sand

And I heard ambulances roaring through that sentimental night
I wish that I could be just like them, go and save somebody's life
But instead I'm in my girlfriend's bed, trying to spark a fire
So we can make our misery as urgent as we want to

I wrote plays when I was younger, now I just play dead
I’m always acting out some famous role I thought of in my head
And when I found that there's no script to the restless pace of life
I emptied out that auditorium, I stayed inside and cried

As my stepdads got problems, my ex girlfriends got wedding rings
My friends turned into atheists, they don't believe in anything
And I'm still waiting on a tidal wave to kill us first
To bring our heightened sense of selfish self importance down to earth

These days i keep a straight face, I don't really count my cards
And on the nights that I don't drink, I look for proof of who we are
The rain reminds me of the girls that dried the river in my heart
So I obsess over the weather, as the veins spin on their barns

I wanna wake up with the sunlight, like when i knew who I was
And I first slept with a twin, on two twin beds that touched
I almost joined the 27 club when i was 21
I always had my calculations wrong…

Someday they're gonna board my first bedroom up
And I’ll come back home and spill my guts out like a fresh wound does
Maybe I don't really give a damn
But I’ve still gotta sit and watch
As everything goes back into its blister box

I’ve got friends across the country now, and friends over the border
They rent houses in their silver towns, apartments by the water
But no matter how big the circles are that I belong to
It doesn't make the world get any smaller

I still prefer to write the ending first, then work backwards everyday
Typing on a typewriter, like the dawn of seventh grade
I go back in time, print the words I really meant to say
Whatever I can do to make them turn physical

I should have been a teacher, should have drank my coffee black
I should have flown to Colorado, or at least called her a cab
I should have been a perfect boyfriend, I should been a dad
I could have raised a kid with all the confidence I never I had

The young professionals get dressed for work by their minute clocks
And call me on their lunch breaks, cuz everything is still at odds
And I don't really give a damn, but I’ve still gotta sit and watch
As everything goes back into its blister box…

So we pass over the river, somewhere in a speeding train
But my friends can't remember any reason that we came
They speed up the speed of life, as it's speeding through their veins
I heal in slow motion, as I grieve a season late

And I feel like nobody cares about the dreams that keep me sane
And nobody sees the pattern in the streams that leave the planes
So I let it all dissolve
Hope that we'll end up better off
And watch the tea leaves spin in their cup at a restaurant

[x2]
Twenty years later what if I've missed my shot
Alone out on the beach where I sit and watch
As my worried thoughts grow heavier than cinder blocks
I never should've put them back into their blister box

But I did

[x3]
Twenty years later what if I've missed my shot
Alone out on the beach where I sit and watch
As my worried thoughts grow heavier than cinder blocks
I never should've put them back into their blister box

But I did