IS THERE ROOM ENOUGH FOR ME

Where is refuge in a levee?

Where is shelter in the sea?

Is there strength within a sinner?

Is there room enough for me?

Is there a room in your house without a roof?

Is there a day in your courts without a song?

Is there a place at your table without a meal?

Where am I to be when I don’t belong?

I’m weary of the funeral

I’m ready for the feast

Ain’t used to being useful

I’m barely bold enough to be

Is there room enough for me?

Where is the break within the body?

When there is death within the womb

What is choose and what is chosen?

When there is life within the tomb

Aren’t you weary of the funeral?

Aren’t you ready for the feast?

Ain’t used to being useful or beautiful

I’m barely bold enough to be

Is there room enough for me?

I ain’t selling you for silver

But I’m not buying with all I have

I’d rather have your arms than what you give

Within and without, full of doubt, just as I am

Just as I am, without one plea

Is there room enough for me?

Weighted

Iron out each wrinkle, and every painful dividend

From the tossing and turning, craving and yearning sheets of discontent

Teach me something tangible, make me feel like I’m a child again

Or should I count my blessings, never addressing the sorrows that I’ve spent

Give me hope, round a corner or behind some door

Oh, I’ve been so disappointed before

Need a return, need to relearn that I’m sure

That it’s all worth the weight

Relentlessly impatient, premeditative me

Defensive existence in passive resistance to borrowed sympathy

If I could be remarkable, and a little less sensitive

Tuned to a sound, more like a noun and less an adjective

Give me hope, round a corner or behind some door

Oh, I’ve been so disappointed before

Need a return, need to relearn that I’m sure

Oh won’t you take it away, is my grief something to comprehend?

I’m sick of making mistakes, look me in the eye and make me sure

That it’s all worth the weight

Open mouth and shining eyes I stood, drinking in the sound

I looked as if reminded of something I had found

Scales

Turn now and don’t look, read all the wrong books

And learned for the grade and not the content

Dressing up in layers is something second nature

When I stopped loving you I started hating me

Separate the scales from my skin

And cut to the heart of me

It’s grown from the outside in

Ready as I’ll ever be

If I’m made in your image, framed but never finished

Changing to something more like yours

Though I won’t admit it, if only for a minute

I’d rather stay insecure

Separate the scales from my skin

And cut to the heart of me

It’s grown from the outside in

Ready as I’ll ever be

I wish I’d been made of steel or stone

Than something that feels

I’d rather what’s been shed never regrow

Nevertheless, some wounds just won’t heal

Veins

Hush child, take heart, run not from who you are

Caught in consequence like feuding tides

Knitted to love like your mother, formed to fight like your father 

In time, wrong will be made right

Screaming out something unsung, suppressed under fire by a rifled tongue

Reaching up and out, you see?

Special gets lost in a crowd, a loose change word, obnoxiously loud

A carnival banner held by cheap color

Creature of contradiction, beloved but made to live in

Between the stones of hypocrites and the feet of fishermen

See, royalty’s in your veins, what you carry in your name

Lifts the face of the beggar and brings a king to shame

I’ve compromised all my choices with bad situations and voices

Of a crowd that pays its entry fees in stifling words and melodies

Creature of contradiction, beloved but made to live in

Between the stones of hypocrites and the feet of fishermen

Courage on my nametag cause I’m too afraid to show it in a 

Fleet of sailors with anchors who can’t decide when to throw them

I’d have been a better man all my life if I had seen

Reaching for you, hopefully, could just mean the death of me

Sink

Enough of the nostalgia, my stomach’s tangled up and tied

I’ve been walking on a razor’s edge, faith hangin by a thread

From what’s divided

So batten down the hatches, caught between the Devil and the Deep

While I try to measure worth in red, hangin from a figurehead 

I’m undecided

I’m still flipping the lightswitch and sprinting to bed

Afraid of the dark, afraid of the dark

Though we’re taking on water, if this is the end

Sink towards the sunrise, sink towards a sunrise

Full of blood and thunder, or maybe I’m just full of myself

I’m searching to find some other door to a room I’ve never seen before

Some new horizon

I’m still flipping the lightswitch and sprinting to bed

Afraid of the dark, afraid of the dark

Though we’re taking on water, if this is the end

Sink towards the sunrise, sink towards a sunrise

Lilies

Oh how long must I carry on

Heedless heart, keep me not apart

From where tides taste sweet, where sky and water meet

By your leave, grant me a reprieve

Save me now, resurrect somehow

Give me rest, oh god just give me rest

Amphibian

Lately it feels as if living’s almost like

We’re walking with lanterns in marshes at night

Whatever weather comes upon me, whatever tragedy befalls

Pessimistic persistently, prone to worry through it all

Just wanna be steady, steady 

Don’t look back now

Trade a jaded goodness for a whole humanity

And though under earth and throneless I will be

While I live all earth is under me

Just wanna be steady, steady

Don’t look back now

No I don’t feel ready, ready

Looking back now

Even if you’re gone, I’m still on your side

Even if I’m wrong, know that I tried

Exodus

Feel my hands as they shake, part my clothes and touch my chest

Resuscitate and reject, exploit and disconnect

Did you send lions to chase, why does obedience mean more than pace

Oh what’s killing me outweighs what’s saving me

All that made this house, all that made this house a home has failed

Arrived only to run

Why does it feel like defeat when I’ve lost nothing but my self conceit

Taken in in, to be forced to leave

All that made this house, all that made this house a home has failed

Arrived only to run

Do I have potential or is this pit a consequence

Arrived, arrived, arrived only to run

I wanna be alright

Just wanna be alright

I need to be alright

Just wanna be alright

Coronary

Flashes of light painted in clear sky

That was the night that we couldn’t sleep

Six feet under, buried my head in your hair

Still no thunder but the breath in my ear

Like paper in paraffin you drifted to sleep

While I lay staring at popcorn on the ceiling

In cyclical motion, a wilted devotion spins

Round my ceiling fan, asking again, again

These inescapable questions, like how I’m bent to confess sins

That aren’t my own, is this all overblown?

I think I need a courage of a coronary kind

For resurrection something needs to die

I guess no one is told what would have happened

But I’m getting older and I can’t imagine

Quite like I used to holding your hand

Round and round again, just like my ceiling fan

These inescapable questions, like how I’m bent to confess sins

That aren’t my own, is this all overblown?

Please for once could being honest honestly feel like it’s worth it

Because it’s not been worth being what I’m not

I need a courage of a coronary kind 

For resurrection something needs to die

Breezewood

Another day in autumn, autumn, another bitter microcosm

Of hollow refrain to inundate the mundane

Were you there before in some metaphor

Could it have been the bird at my window or a breeze from the wood?

I miss walking in tall grass and talking with dad

Wishing evergreen in the changing leaves

Though I have left home, I can’t seem to leave

Wishing memory would stay away from me

I remember when I wake in the morning, when I lay down at night

When I wake in the middle, that you’re still beside me

But then I wonder if you like me, I still wonder if you care

No one said in chasing fire I had to fight for air

I miss walking in tall grass and talking with dad

Wishing evergreen in the changing leaves

Though I have left home, I can’t seem to leave

Wishing memory would stay away from me

Remember

7X70

Tired and pretending not to be, certain only in uncertainty

Beautiful, proud and cold hating how she looked at me

But the more I saw the more I needed to see

It’s been so long since we’ve spoken

Can what’s turned to stone in turn be broken

Fools and family are all the same to me

What’d I tell you, who are you to say, frozen in fear I chose to stay

Though I never liked to kiss her, still I miss the taste

Even though it’s foolish I’m still afraid

It’s been so long since we’ve spoken

Can what’s turned to stone in turn be broken

Feeling cold and counterfeit, still content with discontent

Breathe, breathe

Seven times seventy

Breathe, breathe

Why must everything this side of Eden feel more like a funeral than freedom

I only hoped, I had only hoped to be great too

Holidays

The world I cherished has come apart

The end of most days feels like the start

I’ve seen such wrong done in your name

What I fell in love with has changed

But maybe, just maybe, I’m ready by knowing I’m not

And maybe, just maybe there's worth in knowing I fought

And maybe this dream ends and I am met by the morning

And dewdrops turn ocean as I see you before me

So make me blood and iron

Make me lamb and lion

Make me tough and tender

Make me wild and good

Make be bright eyed

Make me thick skinned

Further up, further in

All 29 years, it was worth it

Every doubt and fear, it was worth it

Each time I was wrong, it was worth it

And writing each song, it was worth it

When I think of my friends, it was worth it

When I hold my kids, it was worth it

When I kiss my wife, it was worth it

And in the end, it’s worth it, it’s worth it