Andrea Gibson - Elbows lyrics

I get panic attacks when I'm being looked at
I get hungry in crowds
I eat potato chips to crunch away the noise
The noise is not noise if I am the
One who is in control of the loud

I'm a lot three years old
You can't see me if I close my eyes
You have no idea where I am
I guarantee I am somewhere
Thinking about the people
Who choose the middle seat on an airplane
When our elbows touch my heart goes so fast
I dare myself to not pull away
It's the point of life
Don't let anyone tell you different
The point of life is increasing the amount of
Time you can get your elbow to stay

My joy likes to run from my
Body quick as it can


I've been practicing holding it
The way you'd practice holding your
Breath at a public pool
I can do about half a lap before my
Panic freaks out and it's little red whistle
My panic is not a lifeguard
But you can't tell my panic that
My panic googled how to give CPR to yourself

Despite how it might look I was raised right
My father is a good man
When I asked him why he
Stayed three years in Vietnam
He told me the army offered him a free trip
To France if the stayed the extra year
When he left the room my mother said
No Andrea that is not true
Your father stayed the extra year so
His brother wouldn't have to go

When I came out to my parents they took me
To a psychiatrist to get my head fixed
The psychiatrist said I am not
Responsible for my family's happiness
But my father's brother is a happy man
It was a lot to lose

I never nightmared so much as
A I did those years
I was at a Catholic school playing
Basketball for the Lady Monks
I was taking environmental science from a nun
Who did not believe in dinosaurs
What I knew about extinction
Was that my family stopped calling
And I started working demolition
And volunteered to run the
Jackhammer through the
Asbestos tiles on the building's floor

When I finally got my degree the
Only job I could find
Was as a telemarketer selling
A product called Score
A cologne guaranteed to get any
Man laid in the club
There are times when your life
Is not on the up-swing
And no one was saying it was gonna get better
When they said straighten up man
They meant straighten up
But some of us can't help but
Jackknife out of the net

Some of us know love is not the only closet
We were told never to come out of
There is also the closet of grief
The closet of sorrow
The closet of panic, of terror, of rage
The closet of awe, and want, and bliss
Every honest grit that we feel
This world asks for a stencil instead
For the chatter of
Cordial manufactured machine

And yet here we are daring our elbows
Out noising the noise
Forgiving the past for not being the past
Making no excuses for wanting
To feel too much
There is no tragedy that doesn't knock
The wind out of us
But we, we follow that wind where it goes
Running with our wind chimes
Dragging behind us like we were just married
To knowing the breakdown is what
Trampolines the bouncing back
Call my ring finger
Whatever I use to flip off the rules
Of how my feelings are
Supposed to, supposed to, supposed to act

I am always a groom with a heavy, heavy heart
Just learning to pull my own weight
Without wishing my past weighed
Less than it does
Learning brave is a hand me down suit
From terrified as hell
Dress me in whatever will get me
To the door of my heart
Get my faith in us under your skin
Hold my stubborn in the palm of your free
Tell whoever is sitting beside you tonight
Thank God you never got braces
Your bite looks like a city skyline
I bet you leave that kind
Of mark on this world