Real Death Lyrics

Death is real, someone's there and then they're not

And it's not for singing about; it's not for making into art

When real death enters the house, all poetry is dumb

When I walk into the room where you were

And look into the emptiness instead



All fails

My knees fail

My brain fails

Words fail



Crusted with tears, catatonic and raw, I go downstairs and outside and you're still getting mail

A week after you died, a package with your name on it came

And inside was a gift for our daughter you had ordered in secret, and collapsed there on the front steps I wailed:



A backpack for when she goes to school a couple years from now

You were thinking ahead to a future you must have known deep down would not include you, though you clawed at the cliff you were sliding down, being swallowed into a silence that is bottomless and real



It's dumb, and I don't want to learn anything from this

I love you