Once is the first single from my podcast episode, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters.\xa0
Once
Once I was in love with my future.\xa0
It was lit like a Japanese city.\xa0
My life was charmed.
I got into fistfights
I turned on a dime.
I was fiercely optimistic.
I was the luckiest man alive.\xa0
Once, I was shot out of a canon,
I landed on the moon,
I killed seven with one blow,
I balanced ten torpedoes\xa0
on the tip of my tongue like a sailor.
The future was up for grabs,
The past was simply a benign ghost\xa0
living in the back of my head.
Then one night,\xa0
the gods had had enough
and manufactured a monster
to distress my every dream.
Soon the days muddled into months.
Was I half asleep or half-awake?
No sound was distinct.
All the colors on the wheel
ran together into a bleak, unlovely gray.
Now, a complete disappointment,
I let down my guard,
and gave up the ghost.
I was surprised to find myself\xa0
eager for doom.
The Future reared up for a final foray,\xa0
but changed its mind.\xa0
It came inside, and stayed inside.
Once I felt certain the Future\xa0
would make the Past pay.\xa0
It would shove its face into the mud\xa0
until it whimpered, and slinked off\xa0
into the dark woods forever.
Once, I saw the moon disappear\xa0
like it had been deleted.\xa0
Once, as per your request,
I dreamed a little dream of you.
Words and music \xa9 2021 by Scott Taylor\xa0 \xa0
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