1. |
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You can only mourn surprises.
I don’t want hope; I don’t need it.
It’s not worth the taste that gets left with me.
Get hopes up, get haunted
with three years to purge the damn thing.
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2. |
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|
You get dressed, linoleum ground floor—
like magnets to your knees.
Filling up prescriptions on the clock,
wondering if it’s what you need.
Black rose colored glasses staring straight into all my friends eyes.
One of us was damaged on the sidewalk watching the map get burned alive.
I can’t deem it unfair, there’s no standard ratio of joy-to-time.
But it’s too much. I’m too tired. Too concerned for your life.
You said “Why bother decorating? I won’t be here long.”
I wanted to ask which way you meant that;
but in the moment, it would’ve sounded so wrong.
I got stuck with chemical hand-me-downs
that your brothers didn’t have.
Pasadena’s still the end game, where you’ll find yours.
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3. |
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I’ve been looking for love in details on the ground outside any Georgia rest stop.
And panning for hope until I’m brought to tears or someone dares me to stay here.
The lifeline is the pipedream.
Why does it feel imperative to leave?
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4. |
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I’m never gonna fall asleep quite right.
I’m a blanket on a cold, white floor—fluorescently bored.
I’m up scanning Craigslist for apartments
for the reasons my friends smoke weed, minus the release.
You’re hell-bent on wasting the primes of your lives
just fucking hanging out in different cities.
And I’m up with a theory pinned on my wall—
the red string circumscribes green-lighting a vice, but not quite.
Insomnia’s not cool anymore.
The lights are on, you can’t brag about being bored.
Insomnia’s never been cool before.
The light’s are on, everyone knows you’re torn.
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5. |
Sunburnt
04:03
|
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|
Twig crowns on oblivion.
Like Paul, he was crazy too.
It’s the same, worn Foucauldian metaphors
when talking about how to talk to you.
I got sunburnt by the void.
I’m sending you postcards, I’m outside. I’m wanting to show you the dark; I want it to make sense as light.
Same notes since grade school.
Changing strings doesn’t change the song.
They’re teaching harmonies deep in the bunker,
but a new chord doesn’t make it not sound wrong.
I got sunburnt by the void.
This is your postcard, come outside.
How can I show you the dark?
How will it make sense as light?
I can’t mourn you
when I’m the one who’s changed.
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6. |
Fog
02:10
|
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|
It’s a prime time of night to walk five miles
and beat the sarcastic Florida sunrise.
I’ll float through streets, they’re like filing cabinets, but each is a life.
That fact hurts, but it feels right.
I bet they’ve got a dog, and strange grocery preferences,
still in love through irrelevant differences.
I forgot to grab a sweater or proper shoes.
I’ve been out here for hours, still thinking of you.
I wonder where I’d pass out if I walked straight to Brooklyn.
I wonder what the outlets in your room look like.
You said that you could be somewhere while wishing it was different,
I wonder if he knows that about you.
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7. |
September 9th, 2020
03:43
|
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|
I’ve been living the same day—
the same window locks, and small talk at the corner store.
And the same walk back to the apartment
to keep toiling over what it feels like I’m being punished for.
Then I woke up to no prison guards. Split for the train.
It turns out you can run from god and it ends up the same.
It's circadian rhythm—vitamin D pills,
a knock off Eames chair, knock-off songs.
And the sky’s inverted, like an alarm.
I’ll bike back from on the bridge,
wondering what it feels like I did wrong.
Then I woke up to no prison guards. Stumbled out in a haze.
It turns out you can run from god, and it ends up the same.
I’ve got a paintbrush in ice called hormetic stress I wanna see used.
“Have a small plot of new land at all times,” now I know that I need to.
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8. |
Halloween
04:09
|
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|
There’s a version of you in late mornings—
in between breaths, when you’re not performing.
It’s your accidental form, getting a taste of the sun from the blinds.
On your pale skin, not the mask;
not concerned that the two aren’t alike.
It’s worth restarting if you are not you.
If I laid out my costumes from the last five Halloweens,
then you’d never have to ask any questions about me.
Still, I can’t leave the house without my skin.
It’s what I got when I came here;
it seems dumb to get buried in.
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9. |
Water Bottle Saké
03:25
|
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|
The takeaway is not what you spend time with, but we live like it is.
Your name getting carved in the monument doesn’t make you a part of it.
This place lacks poetry—
from water bottle saké and bad dreams.
Dandelions on baseball fields and room to heal.
Grandeur is made only of minutiae, but we don’t live like it is.
I absorbed advice from that feeling that said,
“be your own person, even if you hate them”
This place lacks humility—
from passenger seat wisdom and bee stings.
A backyard fence, awkward friends,
more focus on our lives than where they’ll end.
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10. |
Paprika
03:58
|
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|
In an empty sky, you can never tell what’s in focus.
I’ve got hormetic stress, a paintbrush in ice.
We can always leave if you’d like to.
Have a small plot of new land at all times.
A pipe dream on demand. It’s a lifeline.
It’s the taste of honeysuckle from all of my once-rational fears.
Identity molting in the sun. I was wrong.
Dreams and reality will trap you if you choose only one.
It’s a lifeline.
You can only mourn surprises.
Pause, start breathing, sit and know that you are breathing in.
There’re endless lives for endless dreams, just keep one foot in each. Sisyphus pushing a boulder downstream.
Find the air on your skin;
the sound of the pavement as you walk over it.
You can only mourn surprises.
Safe from your hopes; distracted by life.
You can only mourn surprises.
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Topiary Creatures Nashville, Tennessee
Hi, we're Tope Creach. We play sparkly, maximalist punk rock.
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