Lovely Thing Suite: Conversations

I remember vividly

My tears dropping on the grey carpet on the top step

Pops giving me his best guess

Me confessing the burning question stressing

And concerning me and

Turning me to a wet mess

It’s probably nothing

I get it, I’m aware

I know it’s probably stupid to be scared

But these days are flying past us

And nobody seems to care

It’s like we’re sprinting towards

A brick wall we’re pretending isn’t there

What happens when we hit it?

Do we split into a million bits

Or do we come back as a bullfrog and talk in ribbits?

What is it? What is it?

You got the answer so give it, so give it, so give it

Don’t lie, what happens when we die?

Dad says, Georgie I’m just guessing from what I’ve been told

Probably thinking, how’d I raise this emo fucking nine-year- old?

Since I’m sorta really not religious it’s a crapshoot

I roll a pair of dice

Although the thought of paradise is very nice

In my heart I know I don’t believe in magic

So I’m thinking maybe death is like eternal TV static

Or returning to the state before your birth

Absorbed into the earth

The fewer hours left the more they’re worth

I admit that it’s difficult to think about

I think everybody got a little bit of doubt

You don’t get to hide from it even if you shout

Not a soul on the planet gets to wiggle out

And he said that I know

That’s it’s tough to take in son but it’s so early

I can see you’re in a hurry but don’t worry cause

That isn’t for a long, long time

That isn’t for a long, long time

That isn’t for a long, long time

That isn’t for a long, long, long, long time

Life moves fast

Made the mistake of blinking, twenty years passed

Now I’m sitting in my living room in Brooklyn with father

We don’t bother doing Christmas in the Bay any longer

It’s first time that we’ve had this conversation

He says it’s tough to take in

I know we’re not quite ancient

But we’ve reached age where we should probably talk arrangements

We could take it several routes

We could sell the house

We can’t work forever, eventually money will run out

That’s a spot taking a loan would help us cover

Which would make it tougher

To leave something for you and your brother

Stop can’t you see?

Every meal that you paid for me

All this power to chase a dream

All this privilege not to crave riches

But it’s plain to me the key fact is it’s

Easy to act like cash means jack shit if

You never lacked it

And the greatest honor I could have

Is to make a buck and pass back a

Fraction of all the happiness you gave to me

And I will never make you live where you don’t aim to be

Age is just data

We paint our story A to Z then dip out

R.I.P. rip out, we tear out the pages

Tear up the stage and we take a seat

Making a vacancy

Famous or not, we fade from the plot

Every day when a new night falls

I ride around the sun on this big blue ball

I get a bit further from the kid called Paul

And I get a bit closer to the big brick wall

But since inching up to that fence

I can run my fingers against all the bricks and mortar and sense

That it’s not so cold and so dense

And although I’m mournful I’ve known that I’m not immortal

I’m not banging into stone

But I’m more heading through this portal

We’re born to return to home we’re all born to be mincemeat

Everything dies except for Papaya King hotdogs on 86th St

Dad hands me a napkin tells me

It’s been the same since the fifties

He didn’t always love the city but dammit he’ll miss me

How can you miss something after you leave

I agree that it’s sad but please

Don’t dwell on it Dad, because

That isn’t for a long, long time

That isn’t for a long, long time

That isn’t for a long, long time

That isn’t for a long, long, long, long time