Nine

I recall once on the church steps

When I moved to kiss your chest

How we paid such close attention

To each sweet and stuttered breath

I should've stopped to paint our picture

Captured honest pure affection

Just to document the difference between attraction and connection

I can see all of my friends and

I break into empty buildings

When the coast was clear

With backpacks full of beer

We'd throw our bottles from the rooftops

At this city-it looked endless

Guess I still don't see the difference between real purpose and that urgent adolescence

And I remember in a basement sharing sweat

With all these stranger boys and girls

"We'll change the world!" We sang

"We'll change the world!" But

Nothing seems to change and

They say none of them will listen

But I still see much more power in that basement than in heartless politicians

And if we get beaten by this winter

If we get strangled by regret, just

Let our love of life and tension

Gasp in sweet and stuttered breaths, and

Have them lay us in a basement

Smash some bottles on the ground, and

Say we couldn't tell the difference between the feeling and the sound

Remember not our faulty pieces

Remember not our rusted parts

It's not the petty imperfections that define us but

The way we hold our hearts

And the way we hold our heads

I hope they write your names beside mine on my gravestone when I'm dead

And when we are dead let our voices carry on

To find a better song

To find a better song and sing along