days are long (the years fly by)

I wear my grief upon my sleeve

Like the dedication page

On autobiographies

You can read it on my face

Wrestle with the words

Too big to be written down

Elephants in dining rooms

Elegant in Babar's crown

Faded Kodachrome portraits in New England snow

They are the bones, they and the skin around my weathered soul

It's all a dream in which the only place my father lives

Is in my memories, take me back to Providence

Days are long, the years fly by

By

Days are long, the years fly by

By

Keep secrets tattooed inside of my loose lips

My old dogs are refusing to turn new tricks

I crowd surf on a sea of all of my former selves

They cheer when they see four walls of my fortress melt

'Cause we don't age in mirrors, we age in photographs

An ancient race of killers still pinching baby fat

I cannot see the future, ain't got no crystal ball

But I know I'll be ready the day my time is called

Days are long, the years fly by

By

Ahhhh it's already sundown

So I brace for the comedown

Can't remember what I ran from, don't remember why I stuck round

With a head in the ground, two feet in the fan

And I'm feverish, eager to cancel my plans

Damn, the movies that your mind can make

Can leave you wildly abandoned or trying to escape

And I'm fine but I ain't

Shit, I'd be lying if I told you I'm great

Still a man full of medicine

Scared old skeleton

I want to be a better one than yesterday

I work and write and eat

Mix the pleasure and anxiety

Messing with sobriety, the highs and lows rely on me

I'm tired of this violent dream

Silence when the sirens scream

Eyes full of crows hovering a dark circle

Who lurk 'til I'm purple and trying to sleep

Ride over potholes 5 toes down 'til

I burst through the clouds that have swallowed me