Photos from When We Were Young

I was looking at photos from when we were young
Your hair is light blue and you're smiling in one
And it's a strange remembrance brought on by this semblance
Oh, we were so serious, shy, inexperienced

Oh-so unsure of ourselves
Making mistakes without anyone's help
And I thought of the ways I remember you well

Some sweet recollection of redwoods and raspberry vines
Boys you wrote postcards to numerous times
The uncertainty then, like some sentence of sin
Punctuated by moments of tenderness
When there were long conversations, sharing of beds
Walks home from swimming pools
Giddy, impressionable, the distance grew up like the night
Decisions were silence or preemptive flight
Yeah, the queer kids I knew, we did tend to be shy

And your parents just couldn't get over their shit
They spoke of how all their ambitions were split
But they still let you in and tried to pretend
Now you let them refer to your lovers as friends
And I wish they could see how it hurts
Or affirm your existence with interested words
Yeah, their self-obsession's a patriarch's curse

So you made a family from people you found
You grew into yourself with those weirdos around
Late nights talking at home, or dancing 'til dawn
Or driving all day, 'cause you're sick of the phone
Yeah, the good ones they tend to leave town
It helps to write letters and say, "Come on down"
Yeah, I'm so much better when you're around

And I think of you when I put on your old clothes
We don't talk all that often, who ever does?
But I'll visit you soon and sing you a tune
About finding a family somewhere in the ruins

Of the expectations we once knew
We'll try to make peace with our patriarchs, too