I'll Back You Up

I'll Back You Up by Dave Matthews Band

I remember thinking
I'll go on forever only knowing
I'll see you again
But I know
The touch of you is hard to remember
But like that touch I know no other
And for sure we have danced
In the risk of each other
Would YOU like to dance
Around the world with me

I'll be falling all about my own thing
And I know you're the heaviest weight
When you're not here that's hung
Around my head

And your lips burn wild
Thrown from the face of a child
And in your eyes
The seeing of the greatest view
Do what you will, always
Walk where you like, your steps
Do as you please, I'll back you up

I remember thinking
Sometimes we walk
Sometimes we run away
But I know
No matter how fast we are running
Somehow we keep
Somehow we keep up with each other

I'll be falling all about my own thing
And I know you're the heaviest weight
When you're not here that's hung
Around my head

And your lips burn wild
Thrown from the face of a child
And in your eyes
The seeing of the greatest view
Do what you will, always
Walk where you like, your steps
Do as you please, I'll back you up

The Weight of Lies

The Weight of Lies by The Avett Brothers

Disappear from you hometown
Go and find the people that you know
Show them all you good parts
Leave town when bad ones start to show
Go and wed a woman
A pretty girl that you’ve never met
Make sure she knows you love her well
But don’t make any other promises


The weight of lies will bring you down
And follow you to every town
Cause nothing happens here that doesn’t happen there
So when you run make sure you run
To something and not away from
Cause lies don’t need an aeroplane to chase you anywhere


I once heard the worse thing
A man could do is draw a hungry crowd
Tell everyone his name, pride, and confidence
But leaving out his doubt
I’m not sure I bought those words
When I was young I knew most everything
These words have never met so much to anyone
As they now mean to me


The weight of lies will bring you down
And follow you to every town
Cause nothing happens here that doesn’t happen there
So when you run make sure you run
To something and not away from
Cause lies don’t need an aeroplane to chase you down

Something Incomplete

I began to lose myself
in the intricacies of you.
In the night, I find myself on the edges
of my conversations about passing and present;
moments and memories and movements chase each other
-shocked in early morning
at how it all boils down to you.

I will stand upon the hill
and kiss you in front of the world-
or walk slowly through the woods
and count the steps we take.

We are leaning forward, heads down
at the top of the stairs.

Generation Gone

The elasticity of our skin
Was never guaranteed.
The packaging never told you
that the chemicals would eat
at your underside.

They wrote across your grave:
Spirited, Respected, Beloved.
How does it feel to know
only three words sum up your life?

Stammering and stumbling,
we try to grasp the outstretched hand,
for support we never wanted to need.
The silence begins to eat at our bellies,
Scraping to the dregs and drenching you
In hesitation.


We visited your grave in the sunshine,
Arguing amongst ourselves as usual.
Two sets of two generations
of women.
We stood above your grave, as if
we hoped you might tell us
what we forgot to ask,
or the wisdom you forgot to mention.

And I hope the trees sway above you,
moving with the wind like a breath
across your face- I hope you remember
what the world feels like or felt like,
or how you were the greatest adventurer
and surest foundation for an entire family,
entirely too lost and too headstrong
to do it without you.
I remember the photographs you sent from Alaska,
the stuffed polar bear you brought. I remember
hoping that some day I'd be able to enjoy life
like you did.

I hope the trees sway above you,
because willows remind me of you.
Last week, my mother gave me your old earrings
and I wondered if you'd worn them,
or felt like you were young and
beautiful- or worn them when you were.
And I'm feeling how I haven't grieved,
how I've pretended we aren't missing you.
How I've hurt for you for years,
but never knew just what to say.
I wrote a letter, and we buried it with you
-so maybe you might remember, and have us
close. But no letter does life justice.
They buried you in June and I wasn't even there.
No book, no three words, no line
-no single memory can recreate you.
And I'd like to kiss the teardrops from
my mother's aging skin. I'd like to tell
her she's done enough; we are human and
I sometimes like to think
we have the ability
to forgive.

I hold what little I have,
another handful of photographs
and a few words printed in stone.
I hold my dreams in an envelope
stamped and addressed
but never mailed.