I'll be the next to go // Surely, we'll see each other soon (feat. Dean Scordilis) Lyrics

A flash,
a spark in your eye
that quickly recedes from vision,
replaced with
faces half-formed
and memories half-invented,
a dream-state masquerading
as your waking life.

You live with
vague ideas
concerning
limitless potential,
‘til you're blindsided by
the passing of time
and realize you've run
out of options.

And suddenly,
you're aware of
your mortality.
Death casts a shadow
over everything you do.
The present is intangible,
infinitely divisible,
out of reach.
A flicker of light
shows us where we're
set to wander.

...

Outside a five-story tenement, in a city where it always rains,
a car waits.
On Mabbot Street, stumbling next to children shaken in
St. Vitus' dance, we phase in and out of personas.
A clarion call sounds from miles away, the
aural embodiment of our collective unconscious.
I hear it all from my apartment.
We used to laugh about this.

So I return to that class, the one that used to meet by the lake,
the one we swore someone had drowned in.
You were there, sitting under an old redwood (I forget what we used to call it),
scented of soap, buttons bound with salt, speaking little.
Yes, your boyfriend wove through an infinite loop,
while you quietly dreamt of westerns,
saying "Okay, I'll be part of this world."

There were sirens passing St. John the Apostle.
I was up the street near the Temple Beth when I heard them,
not swept up in a terrible tremor,
for in the pit of my stomach I knew.
A waltz sailed through an open window and despite everything I smiled,
because I knew you didn't die in 4/4 time.

I remember staring at constellations, wondering where forever went.
So you told me that everything flows into everything else,
that a shout in the street might be god or a note in the orchestra,
each wave passing faintly and faintly passing through the universe.

I return to that now, in this life of limited options.
You're so far away, reduced to a handful of traits.
I know this will never be good enough,
but even though I can't capture your essence,
(somehow I know)

We're not separate (x2)
Hell may be other people, but then truthfully, so is heaven.
We're not separate (x2)
This is but your first death.
I'll keep speaking your name.