River

I’d rather just come home

Every day

And tell myself

Christmas is next week

That’s how I got through

A year in Chicago

Chicago was nice for me

Around Christmastime

It was the rest of the year

That really kicked my ass

So for my own--

I did what I needed to

Fantasy thinking-wise

To keep myself stable

Emotionally

Walking home

Thinking--

Oh, Christmas is next week

I get to go home

When the weather got warmer

I’d think--

Wow, Christmas is next week

And it’s so warm out

I strung up Christmas lights

Around my house

I put up a fake tree

That I got on Amazon

And I even wrapped up

Some empty boxes

With snowman paper

And if all that sounds crazy

I’m not disagreeing with you

But damn, I felt so much better

It made me think about

What people are doing

All over the world

To keep themselves

Away from losing it

Provided they don’t care

How it would look

To anybody on the outside

If you’re lucky enough

To have Christmas make you happy

Then the good news

It’s not hard to pretend it’s Christmas

When it’s not

Even when it’s not even close

At night, before I pass out on my couch

I put on the song ‘River’

And I have this little music box

With two kids that spin around

Like the boxes with the ballerinas on it

But they’re having a snowball fight

And when the box plays

It plays ‘River’

And these blue and white lights

Go across my apartment

And even though I never had that music box

When I was growing up at home

It feels like home for some reason

So I fall asleep to it

And it’s a game I play with myself

Where I try to fall asleep

Before the box stops playing

This Christmas I’m not sure

If I’ll be able to go home

I can afford it

That’s not the problem

I live pretty…

I have the money

But I don’t know

What I’ll do

If I get there

And it isn’t this thing

I have in my head

Right now I have…

It’s this thing

That I can keep holding onto

And I kind of know

That it’s not real

But…

If I ever really find out

If I’m ever, you know

Proven right then--

Then what am I going to pretend?

Or--or--how?

So I might just keep the Christmas lights up

And the fake tree up

And the boxes untouched

Because all that’s underneath them

Are cardboard and bubble wrap

I might just keep

Winding up the music box

And letting it run out

While I close my eyes

And think of a home

That might not be there anymore

Last night, I couldn’t fall asleep

And I kept waiting

For the music to run out

But it kept going

Then one-by-one

The lights went out

All over the city

And somebody thought

They saw

Snow