The Whole World's Gone

"Straight and True" album dissection, Part 4: THE WHOLE WORLD'S GONE
You can buy this song here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/straight-and-true/id370407821

Jan. 1st, 2010, 2:00am:

We are on the porch underneath a light bulb and we are freezing. I wasn't thinking of jackets or hats or gloves because I was thinking of you. There is a storm blowing around us and snowdrifts are being sent back and forth across the lawn. The screeching wind and the bending trees and all the storm's fury are nothing next to your purring calm. I am nearly flatlining with serenity and neither of us are shivering, standing in the midst of the storm in our t-shirts. Do you remember this? If I put it in the present tense maybe the sensations will come back to you. I'm not thinking of the set that my band has just finished, I'm not thinking of the significance of a new year beginning, I'm not thinking one second into the future because I am thinking of you. You are suspending time for me and I am grateful for that because I don't want to work when the sun comes up, I don't want to feel my Jameson-buzz turned into nausea in the morning, I don't want to face the storm. I want the clock stopped and I want your face illuminated by a porch light. Except I am not thinking of any of this because I am thinking of you.
This is funny because we are virtually strangers.
I am saying, "I will love you like an avalanche, and you will be swept under my raging romance."
I am saying "Your lovers are like a mellow breeze, cuz they wanna lift your skirt and then they wanna leave."
I am not really saying these things. I am saying something that is probably profoundly stupid and you are politely listening because there is something about me, you think, that makes all the jabbering tolerable. This will become a recurring theme with us.
We are both probably thinking of 4 years ago, of how this is not a beginning but a continuation. I am remembering you standing in darkness, or maybe because it's a distant memory I remember you dimly lit, but I am remembering you standing in darkness. Your hair was snaking down your back and my eyes were snaking down your hair. Your eyes were obscured by the dark and I couldn't tell what they were doing, and so I was hoping you couldn't tell what mine were doing as they moved from your hair to your hips. Good God. Were you thinking of us 4 years ago as we stood on the porch, or were you thinking that it was cold and that you needed a jacket and that I should probably stop talking if I wasn't eventually going to kiss you? Because I was thinking of us 4 years ago, and saying to you (even though I was not truly saying this):
"I've been watching from this mountain top, and waiting for the sound of your beauty like a gunshot. Now you've got me rollling at your heels. We're gonna dance on down this rocky hill."
Do you remember this?

May 2nd, 2010, 2:00am:

Ok, it's a similar scene, and we are on another porch. We are both tan because we traveled to opposite ends of the Earth and came back looking like the natives. I also came back afraid. Last winter, on New Years Eve, I was singing Marvin Gaye to you while standing on a chair. They could have made me into a marble statue with a plaque reading "Confidence". But, as I said, I came back afraid. Making the grand gesture is one thing, and I consider myself an elite Maker of Romantic Promises (I will love you like an avalanche...) But any gesture needs to be followed by 1,001 deeds, and the idea of the doing is what has made me come back from a tropical paradise afraid. I was thinking about you under the palm fronds while the monkeys grunted. I was trying to come up with 1,001 deeds to show my faith, and none of them consisted of doing much of anything but only of talking. I wanted to write you a poem. I wanted to read you a poem. I wanted to sing you a song. The monkeys began grunting louder. The nightclubs and beaches were packed with nubile tourists and lithe natives, but I sat in the shadows of the palm fronds and dreamt of returning home and being back on a porch with you. I saw you standing there, looking up at me talking. Then I saw you take the porch steps down to the driveway and I saw headlights flood the porch. I know there are no monkeys in Vermont but I imagined a monkey grunting from the pine trees.
Now we are back on a porch. It is warm and everything (including you) smells like potential and everything should be perfect. This is what happens, though. This is what I was trying to tell any and all comers.
I am saying, "I will love you like a foundering ship at sea. But I know that you are just like a starving refugee. Right?"
Do you remember this?
I am saying, "In no time, I'll be springing leaks and hitting storms and you'll be losing faith and thinking about jumping overboard. So you've gotta lash yourself to the mast. Because we've both got troubles. Right?"
The monkeys grunt.

July 23rd, 2010, 2:00am:

Had you let me go on much longer, I am positive of what I would have said. I would have called you, phone pinned against my right ear, and said (while you sat on the other end, by turns baffled and bored):
"I will leave you like an atom bomb. We are bound together like protons and neutrons. And I know you'd never break that bond. Either we stay together or the whole world's gone."
That never happened.
Instead, on a humid July night, you and I walked a dirt road as the stars wheeled around us and the crickets sang and our brains bubbled like champagne. We both knew that the road only led to a lake but we were both thinking about moving to the city and so we both began to imagine that we would find high-rises and marquees at the road's end. You know as well as I do that the best part of this night is indescribable. We were both stumbling but not because of intoxication, I don't think. Beauty that had always been vague and unimpressive was now soaring through our bloodstreams and fusing my hand to your waist, because I didn't want to fall and because I saw you as the radiant source of this beauty and I wanted to touch you like a statue of Buddha or a crystal ball. But really, this is not what happened. These are words and words are just refined grunting and I don't want to grunt anymore. So when I realized that I couldn't form sentences, even simple ones like: "You're beautiful" or "I would lay down in traffic to save a hair on your head from falling out", and I said "Sorry... can't speak...", you merely said "Good" and we stopped walking and you kissed me. I wasn't thinking about what to say next, I wasn't thinking of myself as a falling atom bomb, I wasn't thinking about you thinking about me thinking about you, because time was standing still and I was thinking of you.