You called me up
You said, "Are you still alive?"
I said I'd just been sitting in my bed at night
And listening to I-75
The motorcycles are very loud
I wish I had something to advertise
Of which I was half as proud
September's landed
And soon the leaves'll land, too
Maybe we'll rake a pile
And I'll fall in right after you
You can try to clarify each moment you've spent
As the suburban Detroit fall spills out your ears
It reminds me of the backyard set on Home Improvement
Although I've lived her firsthand 30 years
Your mother called me
She said she didn't know where you'd been
I said the last time that I'd seen you
Was at the Franklin Cider Mill when
You looked up at the sky
And said it was similarly hued
As the night that your grandma died
And you family ate Chinese food
I had that dream again
With the vicious ex-lovers
With suspicious motives
As they hid there beneath your covers
A childhood friend's dad started a talent agency
They tried to throw me some voiceover work selling shoes
But maybe on account of my midwestern nasality
I was unable to give them anything they could use
Pour the lakes of coffee that I drank
When I die, into the tank
Of desperate daily perseverance
If you're able to get the clearance
I want death by morning breath
And a rerun of our chats
As the world wakes in the pre-dawn
And checks their social media stats
Somewhere it is always almost Halloween
Somewhere you are always almost turning 17
The solitary moment's all I'm endlessly defending
I'm stuck inside forever and it's never not endlessly ending