Evidence, Not Instructions (Version 2)

Got a board on the wall Full of everything I know Pictures, dates and little strings Connecting where they go This one means don't trust 'em This one means don't try This one proves I'm bad at that This one says goodbye Look at that Whole case solved Didn't even leave my chair Funny how the evidence Keeps saying what I put up there Then one piece didn't fit Annoying little thing I moved it twice Turned it sideways Still fucked up everything I liked my theory better Before that showed up Evidence, not instructions Maybe I mixed those up Maybe what happened And what it means Aren't always the same thing Maybe life handed me evidence And I wrote the instructions underneath First time I drew a person Looked like sticks had gone to war Could've pinned it to the board: YOU'RE NOT AN ARTIST CASE CLOSED But that's not what the paper said The paper only knew: This is what your hand can make On this particular afternoon Oh That's different One's a fact One's a sentence One describes the evidence One decides what happens next So I kept drawing Kept being bad Got a little less bad Then somehow bad became good enough That somebody paid me for what I had Well, shit Good thing I didn't listen To instructions that weren't there Evidence, not instructions Maybe I mixed those up Maybe what happened And what it means Aren't always the same thing Maybe life handed me evidence And I wrote the instructions underneath One person breaks your trust DON'T TRUST PEOPLE One dream falls apart STOP DREAMING One room makes you feel stupid YOU DON'T BELONG HERE One person doesn't love you YOU'RE HARD TO LOVE Wait Who wrote that? Not the heartbreak Not the failure Not the room Not them Me I took a photograph of something That happened once Then wrote a fucking prophecy Across the bottom of it Damn That's a lot of authority For one bad Tuesday What else is on this board? Here's fear I labeled that: GO BACK But fear didn't say go back Fear said: My body noticed something That's evidence Might be danger Might be new Might be an old alarm Still ringing when it doesn't need to So look again Here's failure I wrote: STOP Failure never said that Failure said: That way didn't work That's useful as fuck Here's being wrong I wrote: DEFEND YOURSELF Being wrong said: New information Update when you're ready Jesus I've been getting mail from life And writing threats on every envelope Evidence, not instructions Now the board is coming loose All these strings I swore were certain Look a little different too Maybe what happened And what it means Need some room between Maybe life handed me evidence And I kept writing underneath So I'm taking down the captions Not the pictures Keep the dates Keep what happened Keep the scars Keep every honest piece of data in its place I'm not erasing history I'm erasing what I made it prove Because evidence deserves a question Before it turns into a rule What happened? What did I feel? What else could explain it? What keeps repeating? What changed? What am I assuming? What would make me update this? That's better Now we're investigating And maybe some old conclusions Will survive another look Good Keep 'em Truth don't need me Protecting it from being understood And maybe some will fall apart Good Let 'em I don't need the case to end The way I thought it should Evidence, not instructions I think I finally see The world can tell me what has happened It can't decide what I must be A failure can become a lesson Fear can make me look twice Being wrong can change the map Without becoming my whole life And tomorrow Something might happen That makes me change this song Good Put it on the board We'll see where I was wrong I don't want a perfect theory I want one that knows how to move So if you walk into my room someday And see those strings all rearranged Don't worry Nothing happened to the evidence I just stopped telling it What it had to say.