there’s a silence that i know you know.
you hear it till it overflows
and no scream or applause will let it go

so you set up a trap for sound
but you didn’t know what it was you’d found
and now you’re its master and its slave
and you’re trying to act out and behave
trying to indulge and abstain
trying to jump in and refrain
trying to trying to trying to say
something a little bit more each day

you leave all your sentences only half filled in,
but if you stop speaking then the silence wins
and you tell prophecies that are god’s own bets
but in the end only the crazy get to collect
a payday of bandwidth and cigarettes

and it’s a game you fix to play
and it’s a fix you jones for each day
and it’s the surf that steals your voice away
but you’ll keep trying to outshout it anyway.