Painting Flowers...
Hi I'm Nick.

"Stay. Don't Leave. The stars can't wait for your ascent."

I'm half of a dollar bill. A kid with a weak hands but strong shoulders and a foolish dream. My team lives the dream. I've been in love and it's warmer than sun. It's cold as hell sometimes too. I've never feared dying because I don't believe it's anything I'll ever have to go through. If God ever called in sick I still think we'd be ok. It's us versus all the others a lot. Down here we're all vampyr kids and everything's at stake.

The plan was, get really high and watch golden girls.

Halfway through an episode called “the operation” it dawns on you that it’s so perfect because you’ve been accused of not trying so many times that when you really lose your head and try too hard you can hide it behind trying to counteract that you’ve been accused of not trying so many times.

The point of lightskylight is to give light to the dark. I’m not happy. I’m not content. Why should my songs not reflect that? This is a movement to me. A movement of the heart to overcome the mind. It’s about being affected, not infected.

You’re not happy? Not content?

Yeah that’s what you said; i heard you. Last paragraph. Like that was gonna just slip by?

You and I can’t handle the cold. We hate it here. We’d be so much more functional in a place where it’s warmer all the time, every day.

It’s always always always sunny in hell, kid.

I wish someone would give me bad directions on how to get lost.

Here comes hope
Just passin’ through
But he taught me
How do act like the normal kids do
All we wanted
To watch the water rise
They sank their teeth
When they heard our replies

To just wanting to watch us bleed
To wishing rain on our parades
To flickering goals and digging holes
With our hearts to be their spades

No
No
No
I won’t let this go a second further
No
No
No
Face to face with god to fight this

Just remember when you find out what you need
I’ll have learned ascension, find somewhere else to feed 

I drank until the glass half full looked half-empty to me
And if you don’t believe these words are true then you probably don’t need them to be
My opening act is a train off-track
What a hell of a thing to follow
But it’s a standing rule to make you feel full
Cuz you don’t burn the same when you’re hollow

Standing tall, in the rain for all
Of the kids behind the wall to see
I ran aground from the sea I found
Just to burn the town in me 
If you meet the boy who wants to destroy
If what you’ve done makes you want to run
Just rein in the sun to get through
And if you feel like you’re not enough
Then you feel just like I do

“We’re gonna end before we start” she screams
It comes from her heart, I don’t know what it means
But I think it’s something about where to hide
When you lose count of how many times you’ve tried

“This is a goddamned rebellion” I sang to the mirror
He was dripping with rain, shaking from that or the fear
I will steal lies from the stars that tell them to me
In hopes that lies like wishes come true when believed truly

If you’re not afraid then you’re not alive
We need this for ourselves my brothers
Because if there’s on thing time has told me
It’s that the most lost will find each other 

I’m just so tired. 

It’s so easy to get lost in helping someone find themselves. 

If you read this you should know that so far, even at 23 years old, I’ve still never gotten used to realizing that things aren’t ever gonna be the way they were. 

Happiness is a hyper-active kid on Halloween, and it just gets so goddamned hard realizing that the mask he had on yesterday isn’t the one he’s gonna wear tomorrow. 

But I liked that mask.
I loved that mask.


I’ll never even be able to look at pictures of me and that hyper-active kid in his old mask. The party isn’t over and he’s still here, but in this crowded room it’s gonna be fucking impossible to find him with his new mask on.

Fucking impossible. 

Could anyone please, just tell me
How could giving your all turn out so wrong?
Fairy-tales seem too optimistic
If there’s a silver lining here then I missed it
Paint it black
I’m taking back
All the “let me count the ways” that I listed

I probably won’t be the last
Standing by the road while you speed past
But baby I’ll be the first to tell
This isn’t love, it’s hell
And I guess that I’m better…

So please just take me home
After all of this I’d rather be alone
I can’t grow among the seeds we’ve sewn
I should have know
This light burns brighter when I’m on my own
I’m not just another fucked up kid
Just want you to hold me the way you did
But you don’t
And you won’t
That’s why I know
The light burns brighter on my own
On my own
On my own
On my own

You never compromise,
and you seemed just fine
Like giving up was a hobby of mine. 
Some nights you’d dress up as my demons
It’s not right, you gave me no reason
To believe I could light this way with my heart
I shoulda listened to the song cuz “love will tear us apart”

So please just take me home
After all of this I’d rather be alone
I can’t grow among the seeds we’ve sewn
I should have know
This light burns brighter when I’m on my own
I’m not just another fucked up kid
Just want you to hold me the way you did
But you don’t
And you won’t
That’s why I know
The light burns brighter on my own
On my own
On my own
On my own

I guess my head has been fucked to death
But I swore to give every last breath
Just to see
Your happy ending, ending with me forever
When word about you gets around
And the bodies pile up in a mound
God the sound
Will make you wish you’d drowned
In the sea we sailed together 

I probably won’t be the last
Standing by the road while you speed past
But baby I’ll be the first to tell
This isn’t love, it’s hell
And I guess that I’m better…

So please just take me home
After all of this I’d rather be alone
I can’t grow among the seeds we’ve sewn
I should have know
This light burns brighter when I’m on my own
I’m not just another fucked up kid
Just want you to hold me the way you did
But you don’t
And you won’t
That’s why I know
The light burns brighter on my own
On my own
On my own
On my own

can’t say you don’t consume me anymore
like I ever outgrew you
and for every bit of wrong you are

I can’t help but believe you’re my little evil

And maybe all your spikes could plug all the holes in me

I see right through you
Right through me
same difference

truth is I’m half a dollar bill
and you’re the other half
we’re not worth a single thing if we’re not together

truth is I’m lost without you

truth is I’m not worth a damn thing

but after all the bullets
I think you should know
that if you were to burn out
I would start to glow

I would light your way
la la la light your way 

“you can’t afford to think like that…”

what if it’s broken? what if it’s that machine that’s stuck on one setting and you can wiggle the handle and mess with the innards but it doesn’t help?

maybe before you go lifeless you go voiceless
by default of no one listening
if no one hears are you really making noise anyway?

“is this real or all in my head?”
“of course it’s all in your head, but that doesn’t make it any less real does it?”

I just want one person who’s ever felt as empty as me to tell me it’ll be ok, it doesn’t feel particularly right coming from someone who can’t empathize. not that I don’t appreciate it, but it’s like learning to fish from someone who’s never even been near the water. 

heaven and hell are one big sea
that can’t be sailed by only me

I’m tired of being told I’m dramatic and have a bad attitude.
Like I want to feel this fucked up all the time
Maybe something’s actually wrong.
Maybe Jon just sounds like my mom and dad
And my mom just sounds like those self-help books she leafs through when it rains too much for her liking

Maybe I can think away the storms the same way I can conjure them
Maybe I’ve just been dancing the whole time this violence occurred
Maybe these songs have been the thing that killed me enough to beat this heart back to beating again.
Maybe the rope dangling from this tree was for climbing up and out. 

“Oh, Jake,” Brett said, “we could have had such a damned good time together.”

Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against me.

“Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

Pitchfork: Did you ever worry that “Beth/Rest”, which is very sincere, would be mislabeled as ironic or was it more like, “Fuck it, I love the way this sounds”?

Justin Vernon: The latter— and by being overly proud of that fact, I could totally inch myself into a corner of being insecure about it. But I literally just don’t give a shit. I love that song. I cried while working on that song. I know what that means, where that comes from, and why you cry for music. It isn’t for ironic reasons. It’s for either sad or joyful reasons. And that song is joyous to me. I don’t think it’s going to end up being the biggest statement of my career because I have so much more to learn and grow. But I love it as the last song on this record. It feels so good

Go listen to the new Bon Iver record, “Bon Iver, Bon Iver.” You’re probably not gonna like it at first but give it room to flourish in your heart and mind and I promise you’ll find it to be quite beautiful.