I always wanted Ferris wheels turning when Jackie stood in front of me against backdrop of a summer sun setting and roller coaster by whizzing up to her daddy’s office in highrise we’d ride the men at their desks smiled as she walked by with the blue eyeshadow that might have been applied a door swung shut when I looked up from van to porch where she waited from got bored with me unlocking break gunning motor, wheels spinning in place we rode the train back and forth and went into her room no one else in the house but I couldn’t make a move and a couple years later, I got caught in a lie about her though it felt so right at the time Jenni stopped when she saw it was me standing there she stammered and nervously reached to her hair she said, ”my God Josh you’re all grown up” but I turned back around to deal with something else forgetting blue eyeshadow while listening taking part in conversation debating why a life was taken, why a rope was tied and why sometimes we don’t get to say goodbye and she tapped my shoulder and asked me if I’d received that card she’d sent way back when after she’d broke my heart and I looked up at you and saw blue eyeshadow in plain view

take a loo around, what do you see inside of here are you looking for an answer in the elevator mirror do you keeping saying "I don't know what's happening to myself?" did I grow old overnight, I'm too scared now to tell you go home every night not knowing what you want again all the while feeling uniform over your skin let it fall to fill the floor that's clean and empty now let the carpet rise to greet what gravity will now bring down and I will take you through the hallway, right on past the stairs take you through the opening to the revelation there in the elevator mirror, holding the truth to see the child vanishing at the sight of the beauty you're not sure if you're ready but no more can you wait you have to open up and let out every single drop you've saved and if you can make that leap, if you can make that cross through the layers in-between, you'll have all that you want and step by step solution will create a ballet to glide through all the criseses, a way will be conveyed in the elevator mirror, reflecting back the proof the healing power to be shared and flooding out the youth by now you should know better then to wait for fantasy but each day yet another may mock all you believe so you close your eyes at night and dream of blood that's dark and blue but red and thin when fuse is lit and burning within you and the walls that wait will provide the motion on to feast to coax explosion out of you that the dead will feel and the elevator mirror will shatter on the floor if we get all that we need and what we go there for

young bag of bones in an old man’s mode wearing tux out of luck on downward slope working holiday parties and auctions passing out drinks, picking up glasses meanwhile my first true love gives me a call tells me that she knows she was wrong about it all I go to my girlfriend and tell her the truth but then I see her cry, I don’t want to lose her too so I go through December being honest with both going back and forth trying to suppose that I’m the auctioneer auctioning myself off moving through the crowd as the flashbacks taunt and I think of the girl who I wanted to teach me to be as cool as I dreamed that I could be me and Chris went to Warped Tour to give to Dicky Barrett a sign that said “Jen Rocks” to take a picture of him holding it to grocery store we go to develop right away waiting on the curb Chris told me that day he might have gotten his girl pregnant and might go to Austin I pretended in predicament I had once been the pictures came out just a blur not good enough for her and anyway this other guy was about to say first what she wanted to here, she was the auctioneer we was bidding I was missing I heard her thoughts saying bidder #1 thank you very much bidder number two thank you very much bidder #1 yelled a high number but bidder #2 yells out another to win focus that could be so significant both claiming to be the only one to understand I’m switching and comparing I can’t consider love the last time I did I came out fucked up I’m stalling so not to make a choice it’s true that only one will lead me to rejoice I’m the auctioneer taking two lover’s bid tapping on container opening the lid I met Sean back in February one night out drinking he said do you trust me? we went to Club 94, a gay bar on the I I grilled him about the how and the why because Sean was a fag and I was a virgin we both had labels of outcast perversion a friendship formed to last beyond all the blue collar bullshit that cut his rest off it got me wondering why my cherry was unpopped maybe I was in the closet afraid to come out a weight lifted when I asked the question out loud even though I was straight, it felt so good to doubt when I finally got lucky and tricked someone I got her into bed but I couldn’t get it up so I put my clothes on and again undressed and fooled her that it was spontaneous I was in her for a minute, she got right up and called Planned Parenthood to get a pill to flush me out then a car crash happened because I stayed in my hometown after the sign to leave came because I almost died I had to mark the time change my name and make summer into a borderline make everyone in the middle an auctioneer trying to find the real me, if they really care to say bidder #1 thank you very much bidder number #2 thank you very much bidder #1 the old guard stands but bidder #2 drains it out again you gotta ask yourself now if you’ll yearn to have years and years of life away to burn justified by wisdom that you might gain from digging deep down to accept change consequences should be treasured and embraced if you’re different than you thought don’t be ashamed just once from the wreck now you’ll survive as across ocean another same way dies I asked Liz the nurse why my heart did stall was it nicotine, cocaine, E maybe it all she said it might be just a little murmur and when I had to know I asked the doctor at the same time my dad was in the hospital while my heart was beating slow his almost stopped beating at all I found out I went out and bought liquor for a wild redhead Irish teeanger we got drunk and high and went for a drive she got an underage ticket I dodged the DUI Liz my sister told me”don’t stay too long” my brother after working side by side with me all summer when I came back in town for Mike’s funeral enough time had passed that I could ride still with Katie and Kelly in the backseat coming back from Mt.Prospect to mourn in peace me and my sister always used to laugh about the guys Katie dated on the restaurant staff one after other in those couple of years I heard back, kept track of all of the tears that taught her how to be an auctioneer whether right left or down middle to steer or to listen for those bids offering no pain as the difference saying bidder number 1 thank you very much bidder number 2 thank you very much at the feet now of the auctioneer the highest bidder will make the past disappear what you love about one you’ll find in another in the next one it might be stronger it won’t be same one you’ll keeping having each one will help you find the final strength you’ll look back in old age and see the link who will ride through harbor and who will sink there won’t be a reason not to love all choice won’t matter and the auctioneer will fall

you keep saying that you love her and I believe that it's true and it just doesn't matter how much I love you but in time you'll understand dear as you shed a tear and you'll know you were living in your tender years in your eyes there are lovelights that shine for her but what you see through those lovelights I see as a blur you could just see the happiness you can't see the tears and it's true, you've been living in your tender years so if I can't be your first love I'll wait and be your last I'll be somewhere in your future to help you forget the past and you'll know that I love you with a love that's sincere yes I'll wait til you're through living in your tender years yes you'll know that I love you with a love that's sincere yes I'll wait til you're through living in your tender years yes I'll wait til you're through living in your tender years

the city girls and the county girls stand on either side of the line both of them I guess know what’s best for the little boy watching inside looking each way for help from a sign on the side of the road that the rest pass by squinting to read all the fine print to see that there’s no way they’ll ever win the city girls and the county girls you’re gonna have to choose your side the city girls and the county girls are going into battle tonight all of the kids still watching TV will learn like I did how to believe think that the county girls all live on farms and the city girls always make you try so hard so I’ll go out just to find some clues if I should settle down and if so with who is it the city girls or the county girls that will finally make me choose the city girls and the county girls I’ll keep going back and forth the city girls and the county girls which one do you see from your front porch? if I discover they’re all the same and city girls too sing of wide open spaces and county girls will travel far away from domain just to find the right bar then I’ll go in just to ask of them to help me figure out and decide at last between the city girls and the county girls before my time has passed and so the city girls and the county girls you’re gonna have to choose your side the city girls and the county girls are going into battle tonight

twilight had fallen as we reached the end of our tracks we started off as heroes now we can’t get off of our backs nothing was something that our trip it never lack adventure boredom stardom lonesome go but never turn back I’m not going anywhere and you won’t stay my head split open, I’ve never hit the ground before in a dream it’s hard to see all that you don’t want to believe that’s why you won’t admit and see that we’re the same you were the best friend that I had never had: what’s mine was yours and I was yours I swore I gave all I could give but then you promised and I said I couldn’t wait but you didn’t say if I should jump or hesitate you pushed me off yeah you just might have set me straight I’m not going anywhere and you won’t stay my head split open, I’ve never hit the ground before in a dream it’s hard to see all that you don’t want to believe that’s why you won’t admit and see that we’re the same two bodies and one train of thought we ride two directions on a one-track mind we’re bound to collide

in a apartment late at night, after bar time getting high science fiction on the screen into the morning will proceed a rain through dark future runs, I’ll hold the remote like a gun and as the grip slides right off I’ll finally come to terms again with facts of replication and how we are all like replicants scaling back the ambition that we all must learn to forget that fades with everyday gone by, to recognize each stage I’ll try tp fight the saturation of the sweat dripping from the replication I ignored the danger of a house on the border where you with all the others stayed up late all summer and I looked at you in wonder after our comrade went under and you asked what I was doing back when I took hold of your hand and saw more than a replicant that had to have emotion lent like everyone that I had left and everybody I just let become another replicant waiting on a lover sent from beyond borders closing in even as the land expands and I’ll say in that letter that I could be the one that’s meant for you if I could just admit I’ll always only be a replicant and it’s not a matter of having to escape repetition will insist that all these ditches stay where you’ll lie as weather signals your defeat your memory returning back to each one you had to meet turning out to me a replicant, the inner texture torn and bent never seeking improvement and only quoting ancient text that observation will see through if the lessons are burned in you combined captors will always win if you keep giving in so Katie, will you be the replicant that might flown but never loved and never got to see difference between the heart and head and Katie I can’t be the replicant, I know that you could see it then when I was lost and spinning around, searching trying to figure out but I tried more than you could know, I saved it all to one day show that it’s possible to break free and leave behind those teenage dreams and I’ll keep coming back for you, I’ll be the voice inside of you from the edge I’ll pull you back and you’ll hear the question asked Katie, will you be the replicant, always in your maker’s debt walking in the deep footprints, Katie will you be the replicant

early in the morning I’ll come to you I’ll be up all night thinking only of you at the funeral home you’ll be waiting there standing by casket letting out tears but while you’re breaking down, I’ll get off train I’ll start walking around but get lost on the way I’ll be lost in Mt. Prospect all night tryin’ to make it to you I’ll be walking through the snow ‘round town I will go talking to myself and the listening ghost he’ll point the direction but I’ll circle ‘round stranded in same place I’m standing now I’ll be going up hills of Mt. Prospect trying to get to the top of Mt.Prospect over and around Mt. Prospect trying to make it to you and at the Starbucks now I’m standing outside I broke down, went in and called for a ride I’m watching all the cars pass right on by if they don’t stop park right under the sign a clerk comes out, smokes a cigarette puffs on it a bit then he goes back in 5 minutes 10 minutes 4 more people go in without saying a word, what kind of town is this Mr. Prospect, they’re not going to ask you “Why ya dressed in black are ya going to a funeral?” “No, just a wake tonight, just a wake just a wake but a party’s in the morning!” I’ll be back in Mt.Prospect at a drugstore waiting on a cab to get me to the funeral home back in Mt.Prospect for that ceremony on my way to see little Katie I’ll make it there, however I don’t care back to Mt.Prospect all the boys sing,"we're in the mood," all the boys sing,"we're in the mood" all the boys sing,"we're in the mood," all the boys sing,"we're in the mood" all the boys sing,"we're in the mood," all the boys sing,"we're in the mood" I’m gonna sit right down and write a little letter, explain why for the worse or better yet the better why I ain’t been back, back at all to see my friends or give ‘em a call I said when I left, won’t be back anymore I ain’t gonna go back down the Mt. anymore I’m gonna stay up here til weather gets hot stay up here and be a big shot only go back down to brag about my fame then get back on the train the very same day get drunk, get stoned, make my getaway wave goodbye Katie, I’m going away back to Mt. Prospect whadda know back to Mt. Prospect, whew here we go you say it’s all just a worthless scheme but it’s all that’s left of my teenage dreams to escape one fact, to learn and know it’s back to Mt.Prospect we gotta go