january 24
i used to drag my family on tours of a cemetery in batavia, new york drawn to the headstones of children with echoes of the fun that they used to play toys that would litter the grass and the marble said more than the epitaph may with trees covered in wind chimes and the quiet of midnight peaceful in the middle of the day
pay me a tribute in permanent marker on a bench, by the lake, with a view miss me only enough that you can still get through the day but never let the grief consume and when you notice the stars for the first time when you look at the sky and ask them why i hope you remember they pay us no mind and let me go
the man on the corner always smoked on a schedule he'd wave but never said much got up in the middle of the night left the bed, left his wife to inhale a nicotine dream it was cold, 3am, and January when the heart attack hit disoriented and bleeding he crawled down the driveway and settled under the light (all night) his wife woke up, an empty bed, concerned and wondering where he went she found him barely alive and in the morning he was declared with vital signs too low to save my mom met up with a neighbour to scrub the blood away
pay me a tribute in scratched away bark in a forest, in the night time, with a view miss me only enough that you can still get through the day but never let the grief consume and when you notice the stars the first time when you look at the sky and ask them why i hope you remember that they pay us no mind and let me go oh, let me go
✒️ Somewhere on my computer, buried in the depths of a much longer story, is a band called Spinster Youth. One of their albums is titled January 24 and the this is the title track. The rest of the song lyrics and the CD booklet itself also exists and will probably make it here one day.