Dan Mangan - Tragic Turn of Events / Move Pen Move (feat. Shane Koyczan) lyrics

Used to anticipate the sign of the coming day
And all through winter's decay
You just mark the way
We worry what people'd say if
We up and walked away
I swore we had a place to stay

Stay that's what mothers say when their
Sons and daughters go away
They say "stay" my mother said "go"
So I wasn't there the
Night she fell out of her
Chair so frustrated that she
Amputated her own legs, or rather tried to
With a steak knife
Her life leaking out on the
White floor blossoming like
Roses in the snow
Her relationship was an anthem composed
Of words like "gotta go" so we went
And sent our regards on postcards


From all the places that we'd been
With stories about all the things we'd seen
That's how it was with you and I
Why say goodbye when we could still write?
And then we took your hands
But we should've practiced our goodbyes
Because then I took
Your eyes and I was somewhere
In the middle of nowhere
Watching the sun rise over a stop
Sign faced down the center
Line of a highway filled with
Sudden turns for the worse
Coming back home cause I gotta play nurse
Gotta figure out with pill
Alleviates which pain, which part
Of your brain is being used for
A boxing bag as your body
Became a never-ending game of freeze
Tag taking place in an empty playground
I was left looking for your limbs at
A lost and found and I couldn't set you free
So we just sat there
Our heads bent towards each other like
Flowers in the small hours of
The morning while light
Wandered in like a warning that time
Is passing and you ride
A little home with it bit by bit every day
And all I could say is "if I could
I would write you some
Way out of this but my gift
Is useless" and you said, "no
Write me a poem to make me happy"

Over the hill and gone
And I'd never been that far
Some boy along the way taught
Me to play guitar
And you said that you'd read to
Me if I fell asleep
Rock me awake again, promise me
But, you make such beautiful words
I wrote "move, pen, move
Write me a bedroom where cures
Make love to our cancers"
But my mother just motions to a
Bottle full of answers and
Says, "help me go"
Now I know something of how a
Piano must feel when it looks
At the fireplace to see sheet
Music being used for kindling
Smoke signalling the end of some song
That I thought it would
Take too long to learn
So I just sit here watching you burn away
All those notes that never had
A chance to play, to hear the
Music of what you had to say
But, I count out the pills
Just to see if I can do it
And I can't even get halfway through
It before I turn back
Into your son and say "stay"

I need something to lean against
I think that's okay 'butterflies
' you read to me they all flew away
And I'm saddened by the thought
And sometimes I think too
Much and though I'm happy right here
You know that I'm really not
It's distracting

I could hook up to my heart to
Your ears and let my tears be
Your morphine drip
And maybe it's easier to let you slip
Away than it is to say
Goodbye, so I hold my breath
Because in the countdown to death
The question of "why?" melts into "when?
How much time do we have left?"
Because if I knew what I
Know now then move pen move
Write me a mountain because headstones
Are not big enough none of this is
Stop it "write me a poem to
Make me happy" I swear write
This, "stay" she smiles and says
"gotta go" I know goodbye

Over the years it seems that
Ageing's just not for me
Though I ache just below the knees
And it flows to my heart
And all through the hearts I need
It's not how it ought to be
You're falling away from me
And it's just not right falling away from me
It's not right
But, you make such beautiful words
Now it's trying oh, how it's tragic
But, you make such beautiful words