we talked as the moon disappeared    discussed the finer points between honest and sincere    and she talked of how we’re so alone    I said, “hey at least they tap our phones    and listen in the walls.”    “did you hear that clicking on the line?”    “yeah it happens all the time.”    “so I guess we must be doing something right.”       I said to her “my songs are all a lie    I won’t write another ‘till the day I die.”    She asked me “why?” I said “I don’t know it just feels wrong.”    she said “well then write something new    something made of me and you.    something that’s free from the background noise of the machine.”       then she said “every song you write can be a folk song.    so long as everybody can sing along and you    don’t mind if they sing a little out of key.”    I said “how do you know me so well?”    she said “we’re all just the same in the end.    we just try to play the game as best we can.”    “as best we can?”    “as best we can.”       I said to her “this place is a machine.”    she said “I know ‘cause I have seen what it has done to you    from the embers in your eyes to the bottle in your hand    I want you to know I understand    why you had to die    why you had to lie    so many times before.”       I tried to transcribe my desire    threw my guitar into the fire    okay I lied it was just the fireplace    no it wasn’t lit, in fact the truth is that it    has not seen flames in so many years.    but at least my eyes saw tears    as they went streaming down your face    and we watched the wood and wire rest on brick    as I started to feel sick because I knew you knew I knew    that tomorrow I’d be back    singing songs about Iraq, telling stories of train tracks    that I have never walked along       so I’ll write for you a song that’s called ‘honesty’    and I’ll tell you to give it up    because it’s just an empty cup    and when the whiskey is all gone it just picks up and moves right on like every drifter that you’ve kissed    and every greyhound that you’ve missed    and every lunar eclipse    when the shadow of the earth is plain for all to see    the fruits of this economy.       the earth is a black hole; it’s just a crater in the moon    an empty promise that he’ll call back soon.    it’s the most ancient of songs    the revolution that went wrong    when we forgot what we were fighting for    and we were passed out on the floor    when the cops broke down the door    they were confused by what they saw    so they went back to their cars.    told each other “we could take ‘em, but they’re sleeping so why wake ‘em?”       then one cop came back inside and left water by our sleeping heads    because he knows how it feels to try to drink yourself to death    and he knew that we’d need it in the morning    and then suddenly without warning, the house burst into flames    and he carried us outside where we slept for three more days    we woke up and looked around the house had burned to the ground       and I was starting to feel free, when you said look and see    my guitar was lying next to me    so I picked it up started to play    and we sat there for the whole day    in the ruins of a prison we had built for ourselves    of rhetoric and cigarettes    empty bottles empty threats    and a thousand gallons of spray-paint.    now all up in flames.    so all we could do was laugh and claim it for the ELF       we burned ourselves out of our home    so that we would be free to roam    and I could start writing songs about wishing I had a bed to call my own    wishing I had chains, wishing I had a home    because I lie but I am not a liar    I’m just so fucking tired    of being a slave to liberation    a servant to the fire.    because fire’s not alive it just does its best to pretend.    but we all know in the end    that it’s just a parasite like a smoker asking for a light.    it can’t live without some help    but then that’s what it means to be alive    even when you’re DIY doing everything yourself gets lonely sometimes.       and how I wish that you were here    so I could spit upon my fears    grab you by the hand and go underground to meet the man    who whispers in my ear    and tells me that I should give up hope    that this is just my teenage angst    yeah? well I’m almost 20 years old and the end is not in sight    maybe it’s around the bend, near that sign that says “The End”       I guess it doesn’t matter since this train shows no signs of stopping.    it’s headed straight for nowhere    but I hear it makes a brief stop in the South Pole    that’s where I wanna go:    where honesty will kill you because it’s honestly 65 below.    but before you freeze to death    you can read the writing in your breath    and see it was written by some ass;    no you’re not really on a train; you’re just skipping class.    that’s the closest I can get to the freedom of a kiss.       I held my dreams in my hand    and I crushed them when I made a fist    to shake at the machine that deprives me of my sleep.    this place is like a movie-set. the actors all have their regrets    and the camera sees it all from where it’s hidden in the wall.    and it thinks we’re all insane for not using our real names    as if they didn’t know what we do and where we go.       so I’m a little paranoid, well I’m just a little boy    playing games with walkie-talkies in the streets.    when the weight of all our feet made cracks in the cement    and we could see what was underneath    and it wasn’t the beach    it was just the livid truth that I had lost my youth.    I’m older now than I have ever been before.    and time keeps marching on despite the teargas and all the orders to disperse    and things keep getting worse, or is it always just the same?       we declared war on standing still.    so long as we keep moving things will    get better someday.    so lets wait for the chorus to come around again    then throw our fists up and pretend    that our voices will be heard    when everybody knows the words    and sings just like the birds    that used to live in the trees that once stood    where this basement now explodes and we all have punk rock shows       and everyone’s too drunk to listen to the bands    but the singer understands    he knows he’s just the soundtrack to the progress of our deaths    and singing is just the mechanics of breath and melody    it’s a verbal remedy.    but I’m still so fucking lonely    and I really can’t remember what was wrong    when I sat down to write this song    because that was so very long ago.