1. |
Big Dumb Heart
03:55
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I am from Virginia, it's a part of who I am.
On my good days I think that I'll never leave,
On the bad ones I feel fenced in.
Sometimes I think about making a change, but at the end of the day,
I have what I have, I am where I am, I suppose I'll stay.
But if you go, I'll carry you with my whole heart.
And if you stay, I'll bury you with my old heart.
I remember golden Sundays, I guess you could say I used to be well lit.
Now I tend a tired fire, and though the room goes dim, I can see you're over this.
Changing together is never easy, you gotta cut some slack.
When you're knocking down locked doors to free up what you've been holding back.
Know that I got your back
You're my family
If you need me,
Just give me a ring.
I remember the sun-soaked foyer, when I caught you, babe, in my view-finder.
With your school books open, all your hair draped over your right shoulder,
Overlooking the sculpture garden.
You were a reminder that I was wearing blinders.
I was getting bitter, long before my age.
Hey, what can I say? I'm an old soul set in my ways.
Maybe I'll change for you someday.
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2. |
You, Always
04:15
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You can take it or leave it:
I'm gonna see it through to the end of the road with you.
Everybody talks, ignore whatever they say.
They don't know a thing.
They don't know the first thing about you or me.
Let Everyone talk, they don't know the first thing about you.
How I love you always, you're my first thought every day,
And my last thought in the evening
While you spend your nights dreaming.
Of mornings in late summer when we take our holiday.
Wind in your hair, waves at your waste.
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3. |
Dust Collection
03:27
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I'm slowing my roll.
I feel gravity's pull like an icicle drying out on a drip in the gutter
These last few months my days are mostly the same.
My dreams are insane! I can't remember my own name.
I can't remember a thing.
And I'd never do it again, But I'm so glad it happened.
We live rent-free on a subsidy of photos so dim in a dust collection.
An honorable mention for decades with intention, and a few months in detention. My last days spent in another dimension.
And I'd never do it again.
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4. |
Empty House
02:19
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It's been a year to the day.
Remember when you and I laid on the bay watching the tide ebb and flow again?
You've become so vacant, like our old empty house - we swore we'd never lock each other out.
Where do my friends go when they die?
Bite the dust,
Suck it up, suck it in, we're going on again,
But nobody's even listening.
I know what you've been up to old friend.
Every day you write the same thing again.
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5. |
Boxed
04:18
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I don't want to die with all my good ideas.
I don't wanna die at all.
I'm so tired of working for weekends, I wanna see how things shake out
When I spend my days logged off and shut down.
I've been under the weather lately,
and you've been under some deadlines baby.
Let's dig ourselves back in.
I don't need to see any of these people again.
Everybody's staying, everything is the same.
We're just moving furniture, we'll be back in the morning.
Everybody's saying everything's gonna change.
We're just moving furniture, we'll be back in the morning.
Through our screen porch, the wind blew in the first warm rain this season.
We watched the clouds shoot the gap that runs like a crack on the roof of House Mountain.
This year's one isolation after another: Heat lightning, low thunder, Blow outs, Blow overs.
I'm backing away now from everyone I know.
I let too many people define me for far too long.
So long.
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6. |
Sea Level
06:49
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This is how I wanna do it until I die:
Every Friday you and I
Make good time In the left lane
Of 81, to 64, 95, and then Shore Drive,
Where we're baptized in the low tide of the Chesapeake.
And we'll run our dogs along the Atlantic when the sun rises.
And you'll talk me down when I start to panic like the way I tend to do.
And when the summer heat dries out, we'll just keep heading south,
Until we can roll our windows down again.
Come on, come on, Get on my Sea Level
And I thought after three decades, give or take,
I'd start living like I'd bite the dust on any given day.
But I only feel my age when I'm making a mistake.
Days before we made a family felt like a practice take.
Still there's a tightness in my chest,
Where I cellar all this mess
You can see it on the days that I just can't hit a stride.
Sometimes I feel hollow,
But there's no echo when I swallow.
My heart just palpitates
When the speakers vibrate.
I am trying so hard to leave a better name.
To do more than just tread some water.
To be a better brother, son, husband and father.
I'll give a shit about being good,
I'll give my best to everyone,
I'll get everything on my to-do list done.
I'll try to love this city, like I don't belong in another one.
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7. |
Short Stormy
03:17
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This is the way your future corrupts:
Our cords are cut, the door slams shut.
The phone won't ring, the mail never shows.
Just occasional pollsters trying to swing your vote.
And each time you catch yourself thinking aloud about
People you built all your weekends around, you shudder.
In a house filled with photos of your loves passed,
Haunting your hallways behind framed glass.
There's a 5 x 7"
Of something strange happening
Before you lost your guts in the clutter.
Life never felt so good in a world so big,
Then my vertigo kicked in.
We were young once, but that's over,
We ran out of gas.
There's no ending fast.
It's just a slow coast home.
Where nobody knows you.
This is the time she visits each evening:
The dogs get quiet, the door starts creaking,
I cut the light off, and crawl into bed.
She tries to kiss me, I feel her breath on the crown of my head,
And her hair drop through my shoulders
Every night I fix her tea, I leave it on the nightstand...
You're a widower's dream.
I wish you could stay, but I know you've gotta leave me.
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8. |
Boat Junk
05:08
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This is how I got here singing to you:
Every evening we'd lose our clothes like a couple of teenage ghosts
In the glow of some shitty late-night talk show.
Crossing over before curfew.
We knew no one hangs around old haunts
For good.
You know, better or not,
We gambled a lot. this time we're caught.
We sold out to settle up.
And if your parents only knew what you and I were getting ourselves into
Out on the weekend,
They'd have really given it to you.
Years later, I saw you again, at the services for our lost friend.
You sang, "You are! you are my brother."
And I'll remember yours more than the others.
2012 was such a bummer.
I drug my feet the entire summer,
But I dug in and I recovered.
One day you'll float down the James with some junk from all the boats you sank that May,
Singing my favorite verse from "Saint Swithin's Day:"
You know, "The times that we all hoped would last, like a train they have gone by so fast."
You went too fast.
And we moved too slow.
Now we'll never know.
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Matt Leech Harrisonburg, Virginia
Dad, dude, designer, and unofficial Virginia advocate™ living, working, and writing in the shadow of the Blue Ridge.
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