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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of posh polish, headache, uncrush, all my friends (feat. Nick Navari), copycat, besides, creature comforts, ina garten, and 3 more.
1. |
questions
04:03
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New York winter, take me from this feeling I can’t name,
far from the beach I used to know.
Can’t outrun my memory, so I go swimming every day
’til they close the pool and leave me in the snow alone.
I need you as you were
to make what I was.
I need you to wake up and wake me up.
Life was plants and pasta, and now you’re here in the flesh,
right outside my window in the cold,
a sunny, misplaced figure in the January gray,
sitting on my unmade bed so calmly while the tension only grows—
How am I supposed to know
what I’m supposed to say,
beyond your pretty name?
I’ve got a lot of questions,
but I don’t wanna know
any of the answers,
with maybe one exception—
and that’s, from your perspective,
are you and I okay?
Okay?
I need you as you were
to make me what I was.
I need you to wake up and apologize to me,
But that’s not gonna happen.
When am I gonna see
that I don’t get what I want,
I just get to be me, but just the me from after?
How am I supposed to know
who that even is now?
Drenched in sweat and strain,
tired and afraid,
how am I supposed to know
how to be okay?
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2. |
no tracks
03:19
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I’ve been out,
no tracks, in muddy backwood lanes.
I’m wondering how I’m floating in the
heavy rain.
No tracks on even the muddiest days,
I’m floating, I’m floating
in heavy rain.
I’ve been out,
no tracks on muddy backwood lanes
I’m wondering how I’m floating in the
heavy rain.
No tracks—I look behind me, it’s the same—
I’m floating, I’m floating
in heavy rain.
Was it something I said?
You keep looking at me like that.
But it’s not so bad.
In fact, I’ve been looking back.
This feels over my head,
I think I’ve broken my cover.
If I could live a whole day through this feeling,
then I’ll have another.
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3. |
hotel bar
02:49
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Night without a coda,
wishing it were colder
with a scotch and soda
in the hotel bar.
Travel makes strangers of
everyone you see,
perpetually apart.
Wake to a scream in
jacket and jeans,
instinctively grab your bag.
Just a false alarm, but
never safe from harm, heart
still jumping off its track.
Night without an end,
the lobby’s your best friend.
The lights beyond the rocks
are people passing by,
tomorrow on their minds,
strangers in the dark.
Buses and trains, long
walks in the rain, just
count the stains
on your coat.
Small, sore waves spray
on your face and
empty seats on the boat.
Life on the move, it’s easy to lose a
bag on the disembark:
socks in the bedsheets, phone in the seaweed,
pieces of your heart.
Hollow is the anthem of circumstance, and
in an unclear key.
Finding yourself and losing your friends both
sound the same to me.
Night for the boarder,
wishing it were warmer,
far, but unsure how far.
Travel makes strangers of
everyone we know, just
drinkers in the hotel bar.
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4. |
the others
02:28
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I’m kind of hoping this feeling just goes away;
party’s at 8, and it’s a little late for personal development—
I don’t have the time to do this well.
I’m walking out the door, there’s no time for more
“What is this? Where is it going? How does it end?”
Can I have a second to myself?
I’m stumbling onto the platform,
dying of heat on the day of a snowstorm—
celebrities and oddities and mothers.
I used to love Halloween, but, lately,
dead leaves, decorated edibles, and fakery
make me dizzy in a way I can’t explain.
And my costume’s just a guy who kinda looks like me;
the fit is awful but that fits awfully fittingly:
my needs dissolve like cotton candy in the rain.
I’m walking upstairs into a bedroom,
gen 2 smartphone playing a pop tune,
putting my mask back on under the covers,
thinking of stuff he says to fool the others.
I’m just doing best that I can;
commit to the bit to the end.
I don’t think anyone gets who I came as,
kind of annoyed but too dizzy to stay mad.
I’m so hot I could tear off all my skin.
Honestly, this night’s falling to pieces;
I should just go home and bathe in Coke and Reese’s,
plaster over all the thoughts that I’ve been having, like
Is this the four-chord song of my whole life,
years of suspension all over one lie?
Friends and kids and relatives and lovers—
This will pass, no need to tell the others.
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5. |
sea song
00:53
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6. |
girl mason
02:40
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I know all the secrets
of every lodge in the state.
Got no pockets for them,
but I’ll take them to my grave.
Mistress of equivocation,
playing an impossible game,
Yeah, I’m excommunicated,
and my exes don’t communicate.
And I know that’s just a chance I’m taking,
but that’s how it is coming back from a leave.
I’m the county’s only girl mason,
and I’m taking back my seat.
I ruffled peacock feathers,
brought a geriatric man to tears.
He should just get over it,
the French have been doing it for years.
They said I’m one of the guys,
and it just won’t stick.
The chapter leader let me back in
only because he thinks I’m sick.
And it’s just a silly chance I’m taking,
but that’s how it is coming back from a leave.
I’m the county’s only girl mason,
and I’m taking back my seat.
I’d give up every compass and level
to be like you.
But am I less of each one just because
I'm still two of the two?
If I’m the only one for long,
then I really don’t know what I’ll do,
because I came here to belong, and I’m longing
for all of this to no longer be news.
And I know that’s just a chance I’m taking,
but that’s how it is coming back from a leave.
I’m the county’s only girl mason,
and I’m taking back my seat
You gotta know that it’s no fun
to be an exception,
and I hope that someday soon it changes.
I’m the county’s only girl mason,
and I didn’t know it would be so draining.
I’m the county’s only girl mason,
for now, anyway.
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7. |
interlude
03:18
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Hold on just a moment, hazel eyes,
thought you might be someone else.
I saw you just a moment, passing by
the band-aids on the bathroom shelf.
Orange on the rest stop off 85,
two or three sedans in back.
Gotten used to being passersby,
halfway down the road from this and that.
No one’s getting home today,
but far too far for turning back,
and so we make our winding way,
here and there, this and that.
Have you been bathing in a violet sky,
bony-footed, feather-backed,
far too north a month from wintertime
with no intent of changing track?
Learned to burrow double-time
and settled in ’til spring arrives?
It’s not so bad to be so green,
though not an easy thing at that,
but you get used to being in between,
here and there,
then and now,
hazel-eyed,
this and that.
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8. |
seacaucus
03:52
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Night at the junction, taking it easy,
nothing to do, so really no need
to sweat at the junction, stand in the breeze,
awaiting the 10 at 8:17.
I thought I saw you waiting in the ticket line
When I got tripped from behind me.
Untied myself from somebody else’s problems,
But I guess the string was still tied to me.
And you were gone before I could even decide
if you were worth my time.
I guess you made it out all right before the
Notice of delay, not a single train is coming in on time.
I saw you’re back on social,
looked so happy, looked so hopeful,
And I’m at the junction, taking it easy,
nothing to do, so really no need
to sweat at the junction, stand in the breeze,
Awaiting a train that’s stuck in Port Jervis.
So you’ve been out on the run,
maybe getting some sun,
yeah, you’ve been busy in the time that’s passed.
I heard a story or two—
you punched my friend in the teeth—
I heard they didn’t punch back.
It’s weird to be jealous of a person who’s so unkind,
but that can happen when they’re out living their life
and you’re at the junction, taking it easy,
nothing to do, so really no need
to sweat at the junction, stand in the breeze,
awaiting a train with difficulties.
From the bottom of my heart,
I wish you were here too.
I’ve got a lot of yelling I’ve been saving up for you.
I shouldn’t think of you as evil,
but seeing as I’m boiling in a soup
of New York City businesspeople,
I wonder what you do
to keep yourself so on the move.
It’s easy to think of you as dishonest
when I’m stuck six hours in Seacaucus
Tonight, at the junction, taking it easy,
nothing to do, so really no need
to sweat at the junction, stand in the breeze,
awaiting a 10 delayed until 3,
tonight, at the junction, taking it easy.
Tonight at the junction stand in the breeze,
awaiting a train with difficulties.
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9. |
circus asleep
01:23
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10. |
the woods, again
04:33
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I can’t feel my feet,
but honestly, it’s fine.
Soon the shade will fade into the light of summertime,
or so I’m told.
The whole town wrapped in gauze,
no tracks behind my feet,
like I come from nowhere and nothing’s
happened to me.
The time is now,
tomorrow soon,
and I’ve been out in the snow,
looking for you.
And I don’t even know
if you were still around.
I just saw your keys were missing
and then bolted out of town.
Look at me now:
no one in sight,
just wandering around
in the middle of the night—
And then the trail just ends,
this stupid lamp goes dead,
and I’m in the woods again.
No roadmap out of this,
alone in my embarrassment,
I’m in the woods again.
And this is hard to say,
but nobody will know
what I was going for.
Since when have rescues turned out
just the way you thought they would?
It doesn't look so good,
nothing half as dumb as this before.
And I don’t even know the worst of it.
You can’t expect to know the worst of it, no.
Get up from every trip,
no time to catch my breath,
back in the woods again.
If I’d been less obsessed,
or had some common sense,
but I’m in the woods again.
And I will get out of this,
I am affirmative,
back from the woods again,
but I’m in the woods till then.
Every trail will end,
and every lamp goes dead
back in the woods again.
No roadmap out of this,
no space for sentiment,
back in the woods again.
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11. |
forest song
03:51
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I had a dream we drove to the nature preserve,
Sat on the dam while the lake froze over.
And our friends were there,
Real friends, the kind you don’t lie to,
Even if it’s kind to.
Bare-legged from sneaker to thigh,
But the ticks and centipedes were all gone by this time,
And the winter kissed our skin
Like the hands of royalty,
Only cold enough to lean you into holding me.
Do you want to roll in the dirt
Till the voices in our heads grow so hoarse they hurt?
I want to dance on the roof,
But just for a second and then stay in my room for good.
I was the kid who walked all the way around
‘Cause the fence was too high, and I hadn’t done enough to die.
We’re running out of time,
And it’s been on my mind
Night after night.
If we could vacation in some enchanted wood,
Park in the lot and get glamored up good, and
Meet creatures bathed in illuminated dust,
Who will never say the kind of things some people say to us,
And we’d go dancing in the trees,
Uncoiled from our minds,
Wondering if there’s really people
Who feel this all the time.
And I would feel better than fine,
Until two hours in, knowing we'd already run out of time,
Rush from event to event,
so desperate to get an ineffable something from this.
We’d say “why can’t we live our lives
Each precious second and definite day at a time?”
I had a dream we drove outside the city limits
Till the houses gave way to the overwhelming image
Of the trees against the sky,
the mirror in your eyes,
The old tableau of you and me alone tonight.
I want to roll in the dirt
Till the voices in our heads grow so hoarse they hurt.
I want to dance on the roof
With the right kind of moves of a body that’s honest for good.
And I’m walking all the way around
Cause the fence is too high, and there’s never a good time to die.
Running out of time,
But you’re running beside.
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12. |
i'm not leaving
03:51
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Messages like mountains,
every word a hand-hold I can’t hold.
I wish I was a fountain,
I wish you didn’t have to wait so long to know.
I’m not leaving,
I’m just going somewhere new.
but I’ve got a feeling,
Growing slowly,
that I’m going without you.
You think you’re onto something;
the noise outside supposed to make me run.
but I’ve seen the vultures coming,
and even if they taste my blood,
I’m not leaving.
And every step I’m taking
brings me ever closer to my home,
even if it seems mistaken.
I’m headed to the heart you claim to know.
I didn’t know that honesty would break your faith,
I didn’t know you had a faith to break,
I didn’t know you’d cry so much,
but I’m not touched because, for goodness sake,
I’m not leaving
It’s just that the place I was is gone.
And I am keeping what I can carry and then I am moving on.
I’m not leaving,
I’m just going somewhere soon,
but I’ve got a feeling,
growing slowly,
that I’m going without you.
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a small bird Chicago, Illinois
a small bird is the solo project of a queer trans artist based in Chicagoland.
Follow her on IG: @asmallbirdmusic
or Twitter:
@smallbirdmusic
or perhaps even Tiktok:
@justasmallbird
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