CASEY LYRICS

1. Making Weight

You saw it all fall apart,

You saw the person I was before and after the illness started pulling out my teeth,
And draining the colour from my cheeks.
And I can't blame you for leaving me here,
But I wish that you'd told me how it upset my mother,
Seeing her son's condition fading daily, it must have been so hard.
She's been through hell with me so far.

Between depression and colitis, I lost half of my weight.
She'd find me bleeding in the bathroom, too exhausted to shake.
I was embarrassed to speak up because a "man" should be able to care for himself,
Shouldn't need medication to make it through the day.

2. Wavering

I've let melancholy permeate my epidermis,
It resonates with every word and I'm stirred awake at night,
Because my mind is but a pendulum that oscillates,
It swings from grief that suffocates to brevity my voice can't shake,
I stutter when I speak 'cause I'm still so weak. I guess the notion of content has always felt incongruent.
But it took a long time to be honest with myself about the solipsistic attitude I take towards my health.
Oh, how it pains me to admit it but I'm far from self-sufficient;
My independence stolen by persistent mental illness. Please don't mistake my silence for ignorance
I'm trying to be better at this, but I'm sick and tired of self-abusing,
And making excuses for why I hesitate to lead a life that should elate me,
I'm reminded daily that my depression can't be justified, but I can't seem to quieten down my mind.
I've always been ashamed to say that maybe I need help,
But it's either that or face the fact I may end up killing myself. I can't tell if I'm a coward for being scared to leave,
Or if I'm brave for staying when I'm riddled with worry.
So, this is an open letter to myself in 10 years' time,
I'm sorry if you're not around to read this, I swear that I tried.

3. Phosphenes

I feel the veins that sit behind my eyes grow varicose as gentle light starts filtering through fractured blinds that shade the world from me
You'd always watch me as I'd wax and wane
Fluotexine and slow decay,
Dependence on a medicine is Hell without relief.

I am bereft of the ineffable affections I feel I am owed
My vacancy and apathy are all that I have left to show
For years I spent in isolation, for chemicals that took the place
Of fleeting moments in which I found reprieve from misery.

And it seems the only solace I'm afforded is now instead of wanting to kill myself I just sleep
I guess progress really isn't want I thought it would be
And as I lay supine and let the phosphenes fade after another collapse
I'm left to contemplate if I'm really getting better,
Or if I'm just numb to the feeling of falling apart.

My dichotomy has always been that I'm scared of burdening those who love me
But knowing I need help before I died afraid and lonely,
But maybe it's all in my head.

The irony I face is that whenever I try to medicate my aches,
It kills the only part of me that makes me want to stay.

And as I lay supine and let the phosphenes fade after another collapse,
I'm left to contemplate if I'm really getting better,
Or if I'm just numb to the feeling of falling apart.

4. &

[Instrumental]

5. Fluorescents

Does it help if I say that I'm sorry?
I know the burning in my blood has made you worry a lot
Like the medicine they gave me that hurt me.
If you leave when I'm sleeping could you turn the lights off?
My eyes ache if I wake up bathing in fluorescence.
It's hard to shake the phosphenes and iridescence.
When intravenous makes me feel heavy.
As frail as glass, I'm fading fast, I think that I'm ready to leave.

So give me one good reason to believe I'm getting better,
My weight keeps fluctuating and I struggle to remember,
The last time I slept through a night without needing to shed my blood
I'm so sick of feeling alone.

But I can't stop thinking about
Every time that you'd leave me alone in the house.
And I'd lay in my bed, suffocating with doubt
Over whether I'd manage to function without.
Having you there to make sure I take what they gave me
To kill off the pain that I'm going through daily.
In every way that I am strong, I am also weak.
For all the words my lungs have birthed
I struggle to speak,
To you about anything
That makes me feel like a burden.

Does it hurt you if I say I can feel the decay?
In a hospital bed I wither away.
Behind the curtains I've been crying almost every night,
I don't want to ache like this for the rest of my life.

So give me one good reason to believe I'm getting better,
My weight keeps fluctuating and I struggle to remember
The last time I slept through a night without needing to shed my blood
I'm so sick of feeling alone.

6. Flowers By The Bed

I'd watch the furniture dance slowly, as you drag it around the room.
Unaware of my attention, you were alone for all you knew.
But in the moments when the analgesia would briefly fade, I could collocate the words your body spoke;
You were always so afraid.

Your hands would shake as you rearranged flowers by the bed.
I heard visitors pass comments, I looked well, or so they said.
And every morning as the sunlight slowly filtered through the shade, you'd awake, disappointed by me sleeping through the day.

And it pains me knowing that you were taking time out of your life to make sure
I was still on the medication that made me stay when I didn't want to.
And you always say you're not but I know you're disappointed when you visit and the doctor tells you that I've stopped talking again.
It's just when I had no one I had depression, it's the only constant in my life that I could depend on.

Your hands would shake as you rearranged flowers by the bed.
I heard visitors pass comments, I looked well, or so they said.
And every morning as the sunlight slowly filtered through the shade, you'd awake, disappointed by me sleeping through the day.

7. Needlework

My fingers broke holding the rope that tied me to the past,
I choked on every simple syllable I'd stitched into my teeth;
Since the bones reset I guess I think about you less, unless I'm drinking or upset,
But honestly that doesn't happen frequently. I'm not even sure why I'm still calling you up,
When I know that your phone's been disconnected for months.
I guess it's hard to break a habit that reminds you of love,
I just needed you to know that I don't miss you at all. And needlework would never hurt,
I embellished all that I was worth with words so passionately birthed by lovers losing hope.
But in the end I hated every metaphor we made,
Every sickly sentiment that I had sewn into my skin.
I'm learning to remove your every suture, every wound is proof that even love is ruthless,
I was used, but I survived no thanks to you.

8. Morphine

[Instrumental]

9. Bruise

Six years ago, I developed a shake in my hands
As they carried the weight of a love,
I was too young to understand.
But had convinced myself I couldn't live without.
Now the only reminders I have of a life,
I no longer miss are my terrible cursive.
And problems holding my cutlery right
When I sit at the table on family occasions.

And I know my mother still worries from time to time,
I guess after so long she's learning to realise
More often than not when I'm silent it means that I'm already sorry
For not speaking up, for not using my voice to talk about what I've been going through.

And that's why I'm scared of you,
Because even before I had chance to explain
You were tending to my wounds and soothing my aches.
I never thought I'd feel comfort again.

And I know what this is because my hands have stopped shaking,
I hesitate to call it by name,
Just in case that it gets taken away again.
I know that it's love, but what if I'm not enough?

Because regardless of how soft the touch we still bruise and I break
When I about how it must look to you.
As I tremble and shake in the bed that we've only just started to make.

10. The Funeral

Once again, my caution bends to soft amnesia, as I forget that I've been here before.
As the melatonin fails again, and melancholy settles in,
My mouth neglects the shape of words that I know you adored.
Every night it hurts a little more.
And I can't seem to satiate the sadness that still resonates,
Every bone in me will break beneath the weight of guilt that I can't place.
If my happiness isn't permanent,
Then I am no more than a surrogate father,
Lead to the alter to marry the mother despite all of my reservations.
If the joy that I feel is so juvenile, how do I reconcile all the aggression that I seem to harbour,
The selfish depression that makes it so hard to feel loved.
Promise me you'll stay a while, I know I ask you all the time, must be getting hard to pretend.
Safe in the warmth of the sun I let myself undress, revealing wounds that time neglects,
Hesitant I acquiesce to the softest embrace of your bed.
Where shamefully I supplicate for anything that seems to soothe my aches.
Watch me as I dissipate, dissolve into a solvent fear of change.
Despondency bleeds into everything, removing my hands from the wheel of the vehicle,
And I couldn't care at all; sing me to sleep with my mellifluous misery.
Drunk and delusional, numb at the funeral,
Love was once sacrosanct but now it resembles the sound of a language that I'm scared to speak.

11. Where I Go When I Am Sleeping

[Instrumental]

12. Wound

From a soapbox, I have glorified my slow disintegration; nothing more than my verbose, romanticised self-deprecation.
I've little more to offer than advice on letting blood, my cynicism serves no purpose,
And my love is not enough to eschew negative behaviours that I've tried to use to cope.
Abuse of prescribed medication lay as a hand around my throat, but sobriety failed to sedate high functioning depression.
My levity has always been a wound that needs addressing.

And the diagnostic lens through which my health is often viewed, fails to take in to account the uncomfortable truth;
Perhaps my pessimism prospers in the absence of progress, is my cynicism premature or justified by my emptiness?
Sobriety fails to sedate high functioning depression; my levity has always been a wound that needs a dressing.

Since becoming an adult I've tried to think about it less often, but at the tender age of 16 I'd already hit the bottom.
My brother found me sitting on the floor of the family bathroom, crying hysterically and desperately clutching to two or three packets of painkillers that I'd been terrified of for weeks,
I'd been feeling low for a while but I never truly felt comfortable speaking about it.
He wasn't really able to understand what he'd seen but knew I was upset so decided to sit beside me.
That was enough to view the situation from a new perspective, true I knew what I was doing but I'd neglected to think beyond that moment.
Ironically it scares me to death knowing I may have left him without a brother because of a mind-set I'm yet to fully recover from.
But I guess the memory also invigorates me with a hope that evidently, I was lacking at the time.
Which is fortunate because now, 10 years down the line I've thought of leaving more than I care to remember; but while the bad days still hold weight, they're definitely getting better.
Every day I dilute the nefarious self-deprecation and loathing a little more, with the help of my loved ones, who's constant support I certainly wouldn't be here without.
In all the ways that I am weak, I am also strong; learning how to speak gave me the strength to carry on.







CASEY LYRICS