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My Own Car

by Anthony Jay Sanders

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1.
There is no person on Earth who has never read a poem to a microphone alone just to say, “I thought you'd show up, I said really great stuff” I should've gone cliff diving in 2011, but I woke up sick that morning Thought I was tougher than that, tough as unpacked snow on a caroler's back Whether it's escaped or behind the drapes, I can't see the opportunity You'd think the good times would wanna be seen, pretty as a picture in a magazine pretty as a picture from your late teens “It could always be better” I've got a wanderlust and a misplaced trust in the nature of adventure It's a vague thought, but I'm stuck in it It's a life with a dream, then learning that wasn't it When I was 17, something wiped me clean like a big as life eraser At 25, my thumb's in the air A year for each arm of an octopus I guess it was a little bit obvious I've gotta spend some time by myself If I called you and I told you I've been crying every day, would you think I learned a lesson? Would you think it's just attrition? If I called you and I told you I've been crying every day There's a forward line and a line behind and two others and left and right of me I'd say crossroads, but they've calmed down Every end's dead, I'm always turning right around Pace around, polyglot, Tetris, eat a lot, write in writing journal I might call a friend, I might not Is this an educational opportunity? Is this what it was like when my parents had me? Hope you'll buy that I'm busy There's always a point where I'm starting a journal when I hope it lasts forever Then moments lapse and weeds that blossom Start to grow farther than forever can I hope that age brings something I'm missing, puts blush on every blemish Starting and stopping and sleeping it off I feel like a kind of comedian I feel like a kind of comedian like a kid again, almost My time in the hospital 5 years back is 5 years far too long ago I loved it so much, even too much Learned a lot, breathed, and avoided human touch People say I can't run, people say I can't hide They don't know what I can do But am I running? Am I hiding? Can't make a scene at a workplace Gotta face the day with a straight face Talk to you later If I called you and I told you I've been crying every day, would you think I learned a lesson? Would you think it's just attrition? If I called you and I told you I've been crying every day
2.
Are you done? You seem done You couldn't further disengage Your life's a book outside your language You fake it through each page Someone has to fall apart Someone has to fall apart When you think, do you think that the paintings in your cave are the instincts you're ignoring while pretending to be brave?
Someone has to fall apart Someone has to fall apart Is the spite of my fight like a hammer on a whale? You could hear a small explosion 3 floors up in Avondale Someone has to fall apart Someone has to fall apart If I've gotta die, this is how I die: biking on the street I grew up on I hit a stray lip of a sidewalk block and I launch, I launch away If you're gonna break down, this is how you'll break down:
burning your arm in the oven You'll scream, backing into a wall, you'll scream, then cry into your dossier 
Wave a wand by the pond at my former boulevard I see algae just like tea leaves and I see what's in my cards Someone has to fall apart Someone has to fall apart Dollop this, swallow that Let the ice cream hit my tongue You say it's no fun to sit around You don't know what's fun Someone has to fall apart Someone has to fall apart There are friends, former friends now all sprint gold medalists When they talk, their lips are curling just like ropes that pull up wrists Someone has to fall apart Someone has to fall apart I'll record every song before they cross into too old so in case I can't be found again, the damage is controlled Someone has to fall apart
3.
Bought a record you showed me 
I sent you the cover and counted the years
 A whole outfit unfolding
 You're married up North now, a blooming career 
I don’t think I did justice 
I wrote when you left, and when you left again
 You were older and it mattered,
 and I was a coward, a boy for a friend I tried to summarize, to stitch it out,
 your letter in my closet turned a faucet only cold 
I write about being a kid so much 
since you touched me, since I was shown and told They see me here, I’m still right there
 I won’t admit each part of it, I’m still right there
 By the lamplight glowing red You're living better, I am suspended 
I'm still right there “I don't blame you for anything”
 says me in a bubble to the first girl I loved
 “I swear I don't miss you that way”
 says me looking desperate in boxing gloves
 But in the front seat of your car,
 each song that you played put my life in a bottle
 So much of this is useless
 You glide through the present, your memory full 2017's been like a bad dream
 When I finally sleep, it's too much like waking up
 I write about being a kid so much
 and I'm begging you to interrupt
4.
Say that I'm good in my heart Let me stay good in your memory like Oscar before he departs, heroin laced with Ketamine I don't keep in touch with him now I talk to his walk in my melody Let me stay good in your memory What if Sunday, I came by?
What if I drove in my own car? Smart brown suit and a tie? What if I had the same guitar? Why do I see country road?
My fantasy puts you so far What if I drove in my own car? Time, a friend to no one, is not a friend to you Time, your rear-view mirror You can be grateful, you can be hateful It depends on you Are you often tired?
You can say “no,” but I doubt it Everyone thinks you're the world You are a star they've counted Sounds exhausting to me It's not right, but I dream about it You can say “no,” but I doubt it Time, a friend to no one, is not a friend to you Time, your rear-view mirror You can be grateful, you can be hateful It depends on you
5.
Sickbed 04:24
Sickbed inside her house 
Talking to a person from South Carolina
 Tried to breathe in a stranger's mouth
 Tried to find a pulse, and could never find one 
I wanna help so bad
 I wanna slant his axis upward 
I wanna help so bad
 Wants to find the funeral and find the mother
 Just to say he tried to help the sucker
 I wanna help so bad 

Sickbed inside my room
 Sending little messages to somebody sicker
 Must be a bad phase of the moon
 Kissing on a hotheaded action figure
 I wanna be a friend
 I wanna help her from a distance 
I wanna be a friend
 Rather than a suitor in her reminiscence
 I just wanna be a wall that listens 
I wanna be a friend

 Everybody's parents are in love in some way, savage or solemn or separate
 This is a belief that I'd rather not say; some of my friends are real delicate
 The sun moon lovers made a plan for your day
 You only believe it when desperate
 Are you desperate like I'm desperate? 

Sickbed and sadder now
 Trying to be levity for somebody's spiral
 Wants to die and tells me how
 Everybody ran away or gave an eyeroll
 I can't let them go
 Even when the people I trust insist to
 I can't let them go
 Chronically abandoning's a separate issue 
Even if it wasn't, oh, how I'd miss you 
I can't let you go

 Sickbed reversal round
 Apologizing every time I feel a new feeling
 Rib cage of eiderdown 
I think we're indestructible, so why isn't it healing? 
I don't wanna head home 
I don't wanna face my parents like this
 I don't wanna head home
 Tryna spit it out with laryngitis 
Sorry that I acted out in crisis
 I don't wanna head home 

I used to tell secrets to a stranger by phone; we governed as lovers discorporate
 I felt liberated as an Easter rolled stone, sifting the illness for sediment 
It got real foul, like touching unknowns
 A sickbed laden with desperate 
Are you desperate like I'm desperate?
 Mouthguard stripped by elements 
Are you desperate like I'm desperate?
 Sickbed bad as I let it get
 Are you desperate like I'm desperate? 
Epitaph reads: “That's not what I meant”
6.
Lately you've been acting far past just resigned Is there something that you can't admit on your mind? I can listen and not stir and be the listener you were Do you think that I'm combative when you try? I can speculate, but I've got to know why I won't freak out when I hear you're not proud when I appear You wake up with the sun You come home in the dark You say “fuck” to yourself when you parallel park You have days of your own Why should I intersect and leave a ring of rain on your tired neck? Didn't fold my hands once on Holy Week I have fantasies where I forget how to speak I dip my toe, but never dive I'm no fun at 25 Thought of walking down to Southern Illinois Find a nondescript town, become employed Learn to drive in secrecy Do you think that's the life for me? Rhys was talking to me at the Taco Bell He had decade-spanning sad sagas to tell Is suspended grief what you'd diagnose? That is not what I want That is not even close I won't be found for a while I've been making strange and secret decisions I put my stuff in a pile Let a card from my parents tear up my vision Then I'll walk like I planned to It's all I can do
It's all I want I'm so happy that you came, I really am It's been lonelier than home with Abraham Everything is printed there Here's the money and the chair We can go through every talk I floundered in I will set it to dramatic violin and to nobody's delight, I might really get it right
7.
The lives of holy men Your body as Bethlehem You care so much, you're trapped Just like a mom, trapped Just like a mom, trapped You can't laugh You can take a man so gone he became the road he's on and somehow guide him back through echoes and claps Just like a mom, trapped You once found it funny, now you can't laugh Your hair like an oil slick Your hand held, and the woods thick What once had brought you laughter is now your captor, kids that kidnap Just like a mom, trapped Just like a mom, trapped Just like a mom, trapped Even when you laugh you don't laugh
8.
I Turn 25 04:37
Somewhere there's a looping tape, it's showing you and I You're always bathing, curtain pulled, I'm always waving “bye” Somewhere there's a cutting room, the floor's a tape array I'm hunched and making cuts until the memory's okay Somewhere there's a skeleton that used to make you laugh It's stretched to match your closet height, your error's autograph You say a word and take it back in private rendezvous You try and make an honest man, you end up lying too Somewhere there's a mirror, and it leans to lick your face You kiss it like it's drying up and picking up the pace The mirror lies and tells you that your darkness nurses light In a world of fairy tale, the mirror would be right Somewhere there's a microphone that wants to be a wand You've only held it far from me, I listen from beyond A world where we can laugh again and show a person how We'll never laugh that way again, I realize that now Somewhere there's a photograph, its amber has us caught We're hugging in the summertime, my smile is tall and taut You've turned and you're not turning 'round; if not now, then when? I'm standing at the widow's peak to see my friend again Somewhere there's a video, you're golfing at the grass Your hair was blonde and spiking up, your face was Sunday mass I only become sadder when the video is through I'll sit with it in front of me, and that'll be my you It's okay It's okay I turn 25 on Tuesday
9.
Colored lights and “Silent Night”s presents under pine Christmas cheer is living here Sure wish it was mine Let me spend the holidays one half of a pair hoping that a call from you can take me there Silver tinsel, tapestries red and green and white Someone take me home to see how they shine tonight Such a day comes every year while your kiss is rare hoping that a call from you can take me there

about

The songs on this not-quite-an-album are not “new” by any stretch: all of these are 5 years old at the very least. In 2018, I was working as a musical director for one of the Second City’s touring companies. Even though we were on the road for a good chunk of the year, we also spent plenty of time rehearsing and performing in the home theaters. Each theater included a baby grand piano; before and after every rehearsal, I would sit and play. It always felt good and necessary. It was a cataclysmic year of my life, and those pianos were receptacles for a lot of pain and half-baked ideas.

The dueling piano company Howl at the Moon (why am I giving so much free advertising? I do not know) wanted me to work for them, and offered to move me to San Antonio. After learning it was all going to be paid for, I happily accepted. I was very sad to know that my time with the Second City was limited, and I knew that I had to make the most of it. I had incredible times on the road with those comedians, I relished in and escaped via the shows, and played those pianos all the time.

One day, I brought my cassette 4 track (since sold for parts after it became a sunk cost), a vocal microphone (I wish I brought a pop filter for my P words), an instrument microphone for the piano, and a bunch of songs I was kicking around at the time. With that minimal setup, I hit “record” and went off, uninterrupted. I was reticent to do any second takes; there are plenty of vocal blemishes that I would’ve liked to fix, but I didn’t want to go back and overdub due to the finicky nature of the tape recorder. I wish I could claim that the mistakes were kept for aesthetic purposes, but…those mistakes were things like voice cracks. A few flubbed words. Far from sweet. I was not very healthy at the time. Nonetheless, the songs work.

Some of these songs have been retooled (and sometimes scavenged) for future music. I consider this collection of demos a pleasant-sounding notebook for my future-self. It’s served me well. For anyone who listens to my music, I think you’ll find this to be an interesting document.

There’s a strange inspiration for this quasi-album: Prince’s posthumous release, Piano and a Microphone, 1983. I believe Randy Newman also did something in this vein. Listen to those. Prince does a short cover of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You” on his, which I didn’t know I wanted to hear.

Thank you. Look to emptyheaven.bandcamp.com for new things.

credits

released March 16, 2023

Recorded by myself at the Second City's UP Comedy Club
"Mixed" and "mastered" by myself

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Anthony Jay Sanders Chicago, Illinois

I sing for The Island of Misfit Toys, I sing for myself, and I definitely sing for you. This is a place to gradually release everything that isn't TIOMT.
For TIOMT music:
tiomt.bandcamp.com

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