I kept thinking it was a me-thing making people my medicine, swearing I saw some spark in you the way a dying bulb sees moths in its last electric gasp. Shame on me... Chased your voice like walkin' the dog with yo-yo's, and every string was mine. And I would go yeah, I would leave you if leaving ever felt like going. If it was the end. I’d start over again... If I caught fire. I’d strike the match inside my head... If it was my turn to run. I’d freeze instead... losing my way in the same old maze called “kak-uh-raf-ee-oh-foh-bee-uh.” No more lies... I think I need to say it twice. Never swam too deep to climb back out and y'all (and y'all) you’d make a terrible dee-jay, but it was still my choice to sip the sweet malignancy and call it starvin'. Shame on me. And I would leave you... I swear I would if the fire exit didn’t look so much like the emergency entrance. If it was the end... I’d start all over again burning the same boroughs with the same wet match. You know the script... I’ve memorized the trap. Losing my way in the same old maze called “kak-uh-raf-ee-oh-foh-bee-uh.” “Hey there, darling… don’t you worry, darling…” They said with a smile that broke like wet make-up. And I whispered back, “kakorrhaphiophobia,” like a gameshow password to a door they’d never open. Hey there, darling; please don’t hurt me; darling... Kakorrhaphiophobia; the fear of the ending before the beginning begins losing my way in the same old maze called “kak-uh-raf-ee-oh-foh-bee-uh.” No one cares about my fears; not the deep ones, nor the sticky ones, or the kind that taste like cold pennies and Polaroids of people who forgot my name. My secrets are semi-secrets even to me. They only want my photograph so it can haunt me sixty-seven years from now. Send it back send me back to the version I never learned to be. I could be a famous spray-paint artist, or the biggest loser on tee-vee, or some a-i K-pop tick-tock star in a rich kid’s jail-broken iPod. I could be the only person in the whole wide world; or just your little darling when you’re bored called “kak-uh-raf-ee-oh-foh-bee-uh.” I don’t mind if you say so don’t care if it cuts... I just don’t want to follow you to that place where a like becomes a dare. No control no place to go just two bog creatures sharing a seatbelt. Take me back to yesterday; don’t leave me here like the day before in this future I never asked for. I’m done playing these games... This isn’t for me. Kakorrhaphiophobia, sung four times like a warning nobody heard. losing my way in the same old maze called “kak-uh-raf-ee-oh-foh-bee-uh.” Hollow bones, razor feathers; you taught me how to speak in soft trap. Little phoenixes flicker once and are forgiven. Love flickers twice and is not. Have you ever loved someone who loved you back; until they didn’t? You were there in the dream... I had last night and by morning the sun erased you like a rumor. So tell me now; do you love? (Do you love?) Or am I just a traveler passing through your sleep? A hole in the grey earth swallowed the light and I followed; but I took my life back, ran with it out of the pit, across the sea, and straight into “kak-uh-raf-ee-oh-foh-bee-uh.” Like a warning flare with legs. Have you ever been in a hostage situation with someone who loves you until they don’t? Y'all were there in the dream and gone before the dream ended... Are y'all gonna get a job? He is gonna cut your hair? Is she gonna change your name or lose your mind or start a band that plays three chords and a panic attack? Are you gonna break a heart; maybe mine? Before brunch on Tuesday? Am I gonna lose? (I'm gonna lose) Every version of me that tried to stand upright? Are you gonna find a home or run from one? Are you gonna be macho or just somebody’s a-i echo (echo)? Are you gonna make a mark before the fear makes one on you? Kakorrhaphiophobia (kak-uh-raf-ee-oh-foh-bee-uh); the word I keep singing because I’m too afraid to stop.
