When You Were Red

Because I can't live in pictures
I reach out to touch you
But I can't seem to find today
What the camera caught yesterday
Where are you

My favorites became favorites
Cause they reminded me of you
But I don't see your colors
In all this gray

That's what gray does you know
Breaks all the rules
Leaves you afloat, and confused
You can't tell your reds from your blues

It's been two decades
The lights are dimmer
The stakes higher
The pot doesn't just simmer
These fucking flames now fly higher
They burned away my eyelashes
And I can't seem to stop crying
I've grown tired of climbing to just fall
And every time I stand tall
Low ceilings remind me to crawl
So I inhale this smoke and try to invoke
The physics of timing
The high sends me off flying
Back to the time when
You were red

The tint of old childhood pictures
Taken at Woolworths
Eight by eleven, wood frame
Hanging on the wall in our living room

When we were children, you were the best
At relieving stress
Made everything easy and effortless
And I ride for you, visit and pay lawyers
Fool parole borders, raise up your only
Daughter, hold down your baby mother
Then run when the block heats up
Because I must
Take care of our family tree stump
You know it isn't your job to teach me
First hand that life isn't easy
Because it never was

And that's what gray does
And I can only see you in gray now
Lost in fogged up rides and weed clouds
Caught up in big crowds that make noise
And speak loud but hear nothing
So when I miss you now
Big brother
I look for you in the red color
Of old pictures