"WOODWORK"

 © 2010 Oliver John-Rodgers (OJR) 

I fell asleep to the sound of a new year

Commercials sellin’ products tellin’ me how to cheer

I need a map for all the friends that I’ve lost

They move away or find a friendship with a lower cost

My mind is made like a bed that no one sleeps in

I try to talk to myself, but I won’t listen

I'm spending money at the market, wasting my time

I look in vain for the apple of my eye

I woke up to the sound of a bird’s chirp

It made me want to come out of the woodwork

To learn the language of the bird and the way it sings

So I could know when she’s talkin’ about me

When she calls me “flat," she calls me “brat," she calls me anything

She calls me names through alarm clock ringing

I can’t create when she leaves me so exhausted

Take my head, here, it’s rotting in nostalgia

My voice it quivers in the quiet of a closet

All my eggs fall through holes in holy baskets

I keep the past held tightly in my hands

Lest I let it go and have to face the present

Nothing changes but the fret I put my fingers on

Nothing changes but the name I call each same song

Dirty water from the spigot sets the tempo

I’m a burnt-out house with broken windows