The Glory Years

You are my favorite miracle

When the world finally ends, only then will our destinies doubt us
When we spin off the edge of our steps and our couches
When just the hidden songs are left
On our cassettes and our albums
Can we expect that something better surrounds us
When we exit our houses?
The death of my childhood would unfold in notches
It was a caving social comet of a stolen promise
So how'd we grow up but not grow up into
Who we said we'd grow up into?
We said we knew someday we'd grow up beyond this
Now I'm as lonely as the town drunk who only
Knows he's a man when he's holding
A handful of soco and daniels
Sitting at the bar calling all the college girls over
To sing them Billy Joel karaoke from a broken piano
I don't wanna end up just like him
I'll keep on writing till my bookmark bends
I'll keep on writing till I lose
All that's left of my good-heart friends
Until I've spent all that's golden and that took our breaths
If only it matters, I'll probably take the loneliest stance
On this unholy abandoned home to mean we always'll carry it
With the strength of an ocean I'll go like soldiers in battle
And looking back over my shoulder see the roads that we travel

Without the worst nights
In my glory years
Without the holes in the rooftops we climbed on
Without the dead nights
In the adventure life
Without the memories we'd never bet our lives on
How would I know
Whoever I am
Without the long drives
To anywhere that we were always miles from
If these are the best of times I don't want mine back
The glory years I always thought I'd have are here

So for anybody who feels like they still have
The best years of their life left to live
I'm right there with you

We nicknamed my best friend Ghost
For all the haunts he'd have
There's more to life
Than the glory years that we thought we'd have
We formed a pact for down the road in case we lost track
Of dollar diner coffee calls and screen porch menthol packs
If you end up somewhere in an office selling car glass
And I still live at home in five years, let's get our maps
And tape 'em to the window seat, we could travel north fast
Small town kids who learned to fight from our divorced dads
Know the rules of separation like our palms
Tired-eyed of watching burning houses from our lawns
If only we could find a weight in vacant distant summers
And fall in deep enough love
We'd make our parents miss each other
One story starts for every one that never made it
I kissed my first girlfriend on an air mattress that levitated
I used to hate the ground, its roots and holes were bound to fail
But making out in UFOs at the Orange County Fair
Made me feel like something from another world would save us
Or some great tragedy would come along to turn my pages
Maybe I was waiting for a battlefield to earn my place in
So looking back at us the world can see we were courageous
But all our worry signs and torn up lives I won't ignore
Fell in love too many times at least we got to know our floors
I don't plan to ever get the moments we've been hoping for
A couple years later, fast forward

Now I know I won't try
I know I won't try
I won't spend my whole life
Looking for an answer that I won't find
Now I know I won't find it, damn right I won't find it
I'mma take potential, unbury it like I'm gold mining
I'll take my pen and I'll press it in
Pray my penmanship resurrects my depressions
My friendships, my on-my-own crisis
Because I'm only twenty-two
How am I wishing for the wisdom
That's been missing in collision with my old life
I said I'm only twenty-two,
How the fuck am I wishing for what's
Missing from an old life?

Without the worst nights
In my glory years
Without the lows in the rooftops we dived from
Without the dead nights
In the adventure life
Without the people that you never could rely on
Man how would you know
Whoever you are
Without the long drives
Down the black midnight roads that we almost died on
These are the best of times and I don't want mine back
The glory years I always swore I'd have aren't here
But I got wrongs, I got roves, I got seams
I got long intermissions where I lost my feet
I got my best friends behind me, yeah I brought my team
They're in the background singing like that's "all I need"
The orange lights, the ocean gasping, this all will pass
If my quarter life flashes short enough to make my story last
There's more to write than the pouring rain and the autumn grass
There's more to drive to than all the places you'd wanna crash
There's more to life than the glory years
That you thought you'd have

And I don't know where I am
I'm just lost in my glory years