Letters To Xiola

How great it would be

If the sun lost all responsibility

And left us here

For me, the days become an excuse

But I too have found a way of not waking up

I've been asleep now for days, and days, and days

I feel as if I'm sitting in an open box car

And it's heading out of town

It looks like the inside of a prison cell

I'm scared

And excited

My days and my dreams have never known each other so well

In the course of my day, I have no idea where I'm going

But in my dreams, no matter where I end up, as soon as sleep rolls over me,

I sneak out and head downtown

My dreams allow me to cheat

My dreams punish me

They're so vivid, I see pictures so clear,

It would be forgery to paint them

I hear songs as clear as a summer radio

Songs that pass the time

As the boxcar heads south

I woke up in the late afternoon

On a day like this, I wonder if you age less, because you didn't use all of it

You see, if that's so, you should be able to live twice as long

As anyone else, just by waking up at four o'clock in the afternoon

Turn on the late-afternoon TV

There's all the career school commercials,

Drug addict and alcohol rehabilitation commercials

And I think to myself,

Gee, I'd like to have a drink and get high

Then the phone rings

But I don't answer it, cause I don't care who it is

I don't got anything I want to talk about

I remember when you used to call

Remember?

You'd always say,

Oh, we're going to famous

That's how you always end the conversation

An inspirational message

It was okay between the two of us, it was funny you know, but

Inspirational messages always seem the most possible

When you're totally wasted

What do I need?

What is going to bring me around?

It's not listening to ex-drug addicts

I know for a fact all drug addicts are liars

I get off on athletes when they start getting all inspirational

Then they gotta go and mention Jesus and ruin it

Weight loss commercials are pretty good, you know

Some forty-year old lady who's lost eighty-five pounds

And I look at her, and I think,

She could not possibly have more guts than I do

Books

The Bible's never really done it for me

Being an extremist, I've always thought it was just too popular

There's a paper in Los Angeles called the Recycler

The Recycler has given me a lot of inspiration

I remember when I first moved here, and the determination that I had

To get a job, and find a band

Get an apartment

You know, if only I had a cool apartment

I'll save every penny and I'll buy myself some equipment

Always just two or three steps behind happiness

It's too bad they don't do centerfolds or cover stories

I'd kinda like to be on the cover of the Recycler

I had no friends at the time

All my friends now are drug addicts

I don't believe I would ever wish that I had no friends

You never met Bernice or Alfred

They're a couple that have been through thick and are now very thin

Bernice is usually in a better mood than I am when I see her

She lives on the street

She's an adorable Mexican girl

It seems like, if you were to take her home and scrub her up,

She'd probably start singing and become America's sweetheart

Alfred sits on the curb and reads

He reads more than I do

I like to believe it's because he's got more time

Last dream I had, I drove downtown, and I just stayed there

Hung out with Alfred

We both sat on the curb, talking all sour over current events

While Bernice and Casey hustled up the business

Yeah, adding up credit with Kiko

It amazes me how little difference there is between me and Alfred

And Bernice and Casey

As far as I can see, the only difference is that,

Right now, we're making our rent

I remember something about a boxcar

Inside of it, there was something on the wall

Bernice loves Alfred

Hey, I got another one for you

All men are created with equal time

Father Time has got to be the richest make-believe individual

That never lived

A man that knows what to do with his time

Is a man, I guess, that's up in the front of the line

In the course of the day, a man can make three phone calls,

And make three thousand dollars

Another man can curl up his bicep for three hours,

And he can puff up his arm three inches

And another man can stand on the corner, chasing down cars for three hours,

And end up with three spoons' credit with Kiko

Me, I spend days on end trying to come up with a three-minute poem

That's gonna mean something to somebody

And I've never been satisfied

Maybe I should try scrubbing up Bernice