Seeds
Wally Garten
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(It's coming) (It's coming) (It's coming) And you walk past three different sandwich places And you think about that time In the little manufactured home In the orange groves The sandy front yard The way it smelled like rot and swiss cheese inside Somebody told you it was a chemical they used in making the house Somebody told you it was formaldehyde (But isn't that what they pickle the frogs in In high school? This wasn't like that) Anyway, you were visiting relatives in Florida It was a horrible time, you remember tension Your dad, mom, a grandfather and one of a succession of wives Everybody so weird and uncomfortable No one able to say their feelings You remember your grandfather Laughing Using some weird trick to hurt your fingers Something he learned in the Marines Out of nowhere Why would he do that Insecurity, maybe Something about your youth really pisses him off Late that night you're trying to sleep And suddenly it's there with you A demonic presence For no reason at all (You weren't thinking about demons) Out of nowhere A fault cracked open In the foundation-stone of your mind And the gate swung wide And there it was You were raised to believe hell wasn't real Your people didn't teach fire and brimstone Only love and gentle disappointment But there was definitely (It's coming) There was definitely a demon that night So close So present So happy to be here So pleased by your terror The abject shriek in your mind The perfect silence As you tried not to wake your parents up There was definitely a demon that night It took hours Or maybe it took all night To come back from that To close the gate To decide that wasn't real It hadn't happened Over a long enough period Anything can be rationalized Anything can be explained away Anything can be forgotten, mostly You saw visions other times Once, after you'd stayed out all night praying You saw the prophets Looking down on you from heaven But that was when you were trying That might have been psycho-somatic You're not sure about God, after all But you weren't trying at all that night And you have a nagging sense There might be a hell Contrary to what you were taught Love seems rare in the universe And pain seems common There are images you can't get out of your head Not just the stuff everybody thinks about Genocide and torture It's not a theodicy problem It's the comical, idiotic stuff that you can't shake: That guy who got boiled alive in the oven at a canned tuna factory Or - as a ragged ex-divinity student asked once When you were pontificating about God's great mercy, If only one asked for it - "Do you really think the children who died in abandoned refrigerators Didn't pray?" Anyway It always seemed like (When you looked back on it) Like there were only two possibilities for that night Either you had a psychotic break, Er somehow You'd slipped the surly bonds of earth Put out your hand And touched the face of hell All this is why you don't have anything to say When your boy tells you That he is seeing cracks in reality Or that he doesn't like to be alone That's why he's always watching those dumb YouTube videos If the TV's not on, he feels like someone is there Someone is watching him This sounds like the kind of thing a kid would say In a Hollywood movie, In a Very Serious Voice But he says it kind of casually Like it's just a normal explanation Like demons are just something you live with You want to protect him Like that old TV show where William Shatner Switches places with his kid (And how the hell would that even work? Does the kid go to the office every day? Does he learn accounting?) To protect him from the playground bullies Who are supernatural And never get any older But first How can you protect him When you believe him? Either you're crazy Or there really are demons And a gate to hell That sometimes gets left open And second Maybe those demon bullies from the Shatner movie Are onto something Never getting any older Because it doesn't really matter If you could protect him from bullies And tuna ovens and refrigerators (And schizophrenic breaks) All those exotic horrors Because you can't protect him from the inevitable The obvious The mundane disappointment of life Every year there's another flavor you can no longer taste You think maybe it started with sno-cones Strawberry wafer cookies Fried chicken Coke Those things that used to give you so much pleasure You really tasted them But If the young kids of today will allow you a metaphor From another time The grooves in your favorite song get worn down That song you loved in high school Driving around with your friends late at night No parents Slight tinge of sex laid over everything Not knowing you'll listen to that song a thousand times Washing dishes, or changing a diaper, or doing data entry Until the memories are all smeared together It's like the heat death of the universe With all the energy uniformly distributed And nothing has any more intensity than anything else Being young is the best part of life If he's not enjoying that, well... It doesn't get better But what if there was a way to get that back Is what you started thinking Not too long after your kid Started making creepy announcements About the malevolent presence hanging around the house (Which you are pretty sure he does not mean As a metaphor for abuse or neglect or anything) You start putting out feelers The way people do Try to make contact The way people do Maybe you post on internet forums Or maybe you just staple flyers to Creosote-sweating telephone poles in your neighborhood You make clear you just want to have a conversation Make clear you just want to understand (Jokingly promise to leave the holy water at home But you both know holy water only works If you believe in God And that's not where you're at with this You've got a different religious framework in mind) The last sandwich shop before the train station You swing the glass door open Let the cold air blast in behind you Go to the counter, give an order Sit down to wait It's not too long before you're joined That presence is so familiar Feels like it's clawing at you Hungry to tear you open Skull first (You come to understand Over a couple of Cokes - Fizzing and sweet and so alive in your mouth - That it's nothing personal The terror that's being inflicted on you) "What do you want to know?" It asks "And, before you answer, let me ask you this, too - Are you sure you really wanna know the answer?" "What's out there?" you ask Screwing up your resolve "What's beyond this life?" Like breathing on coals The grey eyes glow red for a moment "Hell" it says "That's all? What about heaven? Redemption? Reunion with the ones you loved The journey back to God? All that shit?" No answer "For how long?" The red glow Flares bright Then slowly fades But never quite disappears "No," you say, angry now "I reject hell That doesn't make any kind of sense To punish people forever For the sins of a finite lifetime" "No one said it was a punishment" "But why? Why any of it? Why... eternal torture? Why not heaven? Why not eternal happiness?" "Son -" The red eyes burned bright again "Is that really what you want? For your best life to be out ahead of you In some hazy future Do you want to live on a fuzzy promise Of scraps of happiness From the table of some god who tortures you For no reason By making you endure a shittier life Before providing relief? So cruel So unnecessary "Hell, though Hell is committed To giving you your best life right now What if I told you This moment right now, however shitty it is Is the pinnacle of your experience What if I told you" "But" "You are destined for hell. You can't change that But this moment? It's a... a reprieve A fleeting chance to taste sweetness" "But that's not true - life's not sweet for everyone Not even for most of us, maybe" "No - it's a mixed bag for sure But i promise In your memory It will seem sweet compared
Struggling with Seeds? Become a better singer in 30 days with these videos!
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"Seeds Lyrics." Lyrics.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.lyrics.com/lyric-lf/4780322/Wally+Garten/Seeds>.
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