The Event Horizons Infinitely Remixed

Brigadoon, Kokomo, and Hona Lee
Where I wanna, wanna be
(Briga, Brigadoon, koko, kokomo)
(Hona lee hona lay hona lee lay lee)

I used to know a city made of hallways and hotel rooms
that only stood for four days every year
And the people there already knew my name
and I was someone brave enough to hear

There's a place where time folds up like a paper fan
and a year ago was only yesterday
Where the quiet one who lives inside my chest
steps aside and lets the other one come play

Brigadoon, Kokomo, and Hona Lee
that's where I wanna be
anywhere imagination takes control
that's how you know it's gonna be magical
Brigadoon, Kokomo, and Hona Lee
where I wanna, wanna be

Every chair I've ever loved is in a landfill now
every house I've lived in has a stranger's curtains drawn
But the fog keeps lifting over Brigadoon each morning
and the dragon's on the shore he's always on

Because imaginary places keep their promises
the water's warm, the music never ends
The real world breaks its cities down for parts
but a dreamed place only deepens

Brigadoon — the dancers never tire
(Brigga, Brigadoon, Brigadoon)
Kokomo — the water's always warm
(Koko, kokomo, kokomo, ko, ko)
Hona Lee — the dragon's always waiting
(Hona lee hona lay hona lee lay lee)
and the autumn mist is holding back the dawn

For a weekend I could walk into a room
and every single person listened to what I'd say
Green unicorns and otter-rabbits walked among us
I felt like a rock-star and everyone was innocent enough to play

Brigadoon, Kokomo, and Hona Lee
that's where I wanna be
anywhere imagination takes control
that's how you know it's gonna be magical
Brigadoon, Kokomo, and Hona Lee
where I wanna, wanna be

(Briga, Brigadoon, koko, kokomo)
(Hona lee hona lay hona lee lay lee)

They'll tell you that the made-up places aren't the real ones
they'll tell you that you have to come back down
But I have been to places made of nothing but believing
and they're the only ones I've found still standing now

In the real world I'm the quiet one who stays inside
but I lived once in a city made of scattered days
And the city's gone but the rainbows it left haven't faded
the things that never existed never go away

Brigadoon, Kokomo, and Hona Lee
that's where I wanna be
anywhere imagination takes control
that's how you know it's gonna be magical
Brigadoon, Kokomo, and Hona Lee
where I wanna, wanna be

Still dancing
still warm
still waiting

(Briga, Brigadoon, koko, kokomo)
(where I wanna, wanna be)
(Hona lee hona lay hona lee lay lee)
(where I wanna, wanna be)

Still there

Infinite diversity
that's what the forest knows
a thousand kinds of mushroom breaking down the selfsame log
the algae and the fungus holding hands inside the lichen
and the bacteria that taught the world to breathe

Infinite diversity
that's what the coral builds
ten thousand shapes of living in a city made of bone
the plankton and the whale song and the deep-sea vent that feeds
a kind of life that never needs the sun

Every tentacle, every tail, every pair of pointed ears
every spore that rides the wind to somewhere new
every color that the spectrum hasn't named yet
every weirdo who was told they didn't belong

They want us all the same, they want us all in rows
they want the comfort of a single easy sound
like a choir where everybody sings one note
like a forest with a single kind of tree that's coming down

But infinite combinations
that's where the magic starts
the bee that needs the flower that needs the rain that needs the sea
the voices finding different parts to sing against each other
till the song gets bigger than any voice could be

Infinite combinations
that's what a chord is for
you don't get harmonies from everyone in lockstep
you get harmonies from all the different ones who learned to soar

Some philosopher once said from very far away
that beauty only lives where difference meets
that a diamond is just pressure learning how to disagree
and a symphony is organized competing beats

I used to think that I was strange and maybe I still am
but strange is just a frequency they haven't tuned to yet
and every frequency the universe has ever made
is a color in a light we haven't seen

The thing you think is broken is the part that makes you sing
the part that doesn't fit is where it all begins
the moss that eats the rock and makes the soil
the soil that grows the world

Infinite diversity in infinite combinations
that's what makes the universe unfold
every difference is a note
every stranger is a voice
and a voice is just a life that wants to hold
on to something bigger than itself

Infinite diversity in infinite combinations
that's what makes the music bloom
a thousand kinds of beautiful
a thousand kinds of strange
a thousand kinds of singing
filling up the room

I have a Klein bottle on my wall
hanging from a shoelace on a hook
and late at night I stare at it
and try to find where the inside begins

Like a riddle, like a puzzle
there is no in, there is no out
there's just the shape of everything at once
like the way I always feel too much

The contrast is turned up too high in my brain
and the alpha is too low
most of the world is just dark to me
and then something bright comes along and it burns as it glows

Klein bottle heart
is this a love song or a warning
Klein bottle heart
in all this dark the bright things burn so bright

Most people walk around in shades of gray
everything a little different, everything a little same
but I walk around in the dark
and then something sparks and I'm blinded

And the hole in my heart is the same shape as the love
the paper doll and the frame it left behind
same little person, same little person
one is the joy and one is the fear of losing you

Klein bottle heart
is this a love song or a warning
Klein bottle heart
I can't tell the shape from the space around the shape
I can't tell you apart from the fear of losing you

Cut out a paper person and hold her to the light
thin and flimsy, easily torn apart
That's what loving you does to my heart
But without you, all that's left of me
is the paper frame where you used to be

Everything is already inside
the love, the fear, the dark, the blinding bright
you can't pour it out
that's what a Klein bottle heart is all about
the outside is the inside is the outside
and the fear of losing you is the same
as the love flipped around

Klein bottle heart
is this a love song or a warning
Klein bottle heart
same little paper person on both sides of the cut

Klein bottle heart
hanging from a shoelace on my wall
it catches the light
and for a second both sides look the same
because they are the same
they were always the same

Klein bottle heart
is this a love song or a warning
is this a love song or a warning
is this a love song or a warning

Too many data points to keep track of
too many variables to hold inside my head
I used to have an intuitive sense
of where I was and where I was headed

But somewhere the sample size got too big
and the signal dissolved into the noise
and I keep mistaking random fluctuations
for patterns in my life

How can I control it
if I don't understand what's happening to me
(how can I control it)
how can I tell which way to steer
leaning into the star-slide or pulling back before the splash

I keep drawing lines between the stars
and calling them constellations
but the stars don't know each other
and the lines are mine alone

Did I get the job because I earned it
or because someone was tired on a Tuesday
did I lose the friend because I failed her
or because the universe shuffled and my card came up that day

How can I control it
if I can't tell the lesson from the accident
(how can I control it)
how can I tell which way to steer
I've been sliding on the stars so long I've forgotten how to fall

I want to be the kind of person
who can feel the weather changing in her bones
but I've got too many bones, and they're all filled with anguish
screaming different things in different languages

Every correlation I find
I fall in love with it a little
I build a theory, I build a home at the vertex
and then the next data point burns it down and wrecks the curve

Maybe I was never reading patterns
maybe I was always making them
and the only thing that's changed
is I can see my own hand moving now
showing how (showing how) the trick is done
oh, it's all sleight of hand

Sleight of hand, sleight of hand
what do I draw when the paper's empty

How can I control it
if the pattern was never really there
(how can I control it)
how can I tell which way to steer
the stars are sliding under me and I don't know if I'm flying or I'm falling anymore

How can I control it
(how can I control it)
maybe (maybe) I can't
(maybe I can't)
maybe that was never what this was

Something's building in my bones again
something luminous, something close to flight
I can feel it in my fingertips like static
like the air before a spell goes bright

And everybody else moves through the world
like gravity is something they agreed to
and I'm standing at the edge of something
flickering between the ground and gone

I don't know how to walk
I've only ever run
full speed wherever I'm going
and I've covered so much ground that way

I don't know how to sip
I've only ever swallowed whole
every book in one sitting
every love like a freefall

And people say slow down
and people say be careful
and I have never once in my life
understood what they were talking about

I don't know how to walk
I don't know how to walk
I've only ever run

I burned through every friendship at the speed of total honesty
I burned through every project like the deadline was tomorrow
I showed up everywhere already breathless
already mid-sentence, already bleeding

And I've covered so much ground that way
I have seen so much that way
I have lived more in a sprint
than most people live in a stroll

But I don't know what I missed
going past it at that speed
I don't know what I look like
standing still

I don't know how to walk
I don't know how to walk
what would I even do with my hands

Sometimes I think I run because if I slow down
I'll have to feel the ground beneath my feet
and the ground has always been the part
that hurts

I don't know how to walk
I've only ever run
and I'm tired
but I'm here
and look how much ground I've covered

I don't know how to walk
but maybe I could learn to stand
just for a minute, just to breathe
just to look back at the distance I've already crossed
and let it be enough for now

I don't know how to walk
I've only ever run
but I could rest here for a little
let the flickering settle
feel the ground without the blur
and when the static starts again
I'll know it's time

I don't know how to walk
but I'm learning how to land

The first time something formless turned to light inside my hands
I didn't know what it had cost me yet
just that something tangled up and nameless
suddenly had edges I could touch

And it was so beautiful from the outside
the mess of me made crystalline
I held it up and it was real
it was a real thing, it was mine

Addicted to magic
the moment when the raw becomes the luminous
addicted to the alchemy
addicted to the transmutation of the blood

I keep going back to the well
but the well is inside my chest
and every time I pull something up
I'm terrified there's less

What if I already found the best of it
what if the vein is running thin
what if the next time I reach down
there's only echo where the gold has been

Addicted to magic
but the magic has a price
you have to crack yourself open every time
and what if one time there's no light

She had the most beautiful voice
even when we were children, even then
and she outgrew me but I never outgrew
the moment when a voice becomes a spell

And I've been chasing it in every form
in every room where something shifts
the conversation that unlocks a door
the book that rearranges how I think

Addicted to magic
the moment when the ordinary tears
and something underneath shines through
and for a second you can see the gears

The ones who've never felt it
think that I'm exaggerating
but I have watched the formless take a shape
and I will never be the same

And yes I'm scared the well is running dry
and yes I'm scared I've used the best of me
but every time I've thought the magic's gone
it finds another room I haven't seen

Some door inside me I forgot to check
some closet I hadn't opened yet
some well behind the well behind the well
and deeper still, and deeper yet

Addicted to magic
the moment when the raw becomes the real
addicted and I don't want the cure
I never wanted the cure
the well is deeper than I think it is
the well is deeper than I think

There's a crown on a stone in the middle of the clearing
and it's cold, and it shines, and nobody's wearing it
and the bear and the coyote and the lion
circle each other with their teeth out

And I used to want to be in that clearing
I used to think the crown was what mattered
but I've watched them fight so long now
and the crown's still sitting there and it's still cold

Cold crown, cold crown
nobody can hold it long enough to warm it
cold crown, cold crown
what are they even fighting for

I wore it once
just long enough to know
it doesn't warm to you, it doesn't learn your shape
it just sits there on your head like a ring of winter
and everyone looks at you and no one sees you shivering

And a lot of impossible things happened all at once
miracles and disasters in the same breath
and I still don't understand why the best thing in my life
arrived the same week as the worst

That's just how it works I guess
the good and the bad don't take turns
they show up together like they're holding hands
and dare you to feel both at the same time

Cold crown, cold crown
sitting on its stone
and the big animals are bleeding
and the small ones just went home

And out past the roaring and the circling
the mice are dancing in the clover
and the songbirds are singing something intricate and small
too quiet to hear if you're standing near the fight

But if you walk far enough away
if you let the snarling fade
there's a whole concert happening in the grass
and it's better than the crown ever was

The bear says the crown belongs to strength
the coyote says the crown belongs to cunning
the lion says the crown belongs to pride
and the crown belongs to no one and it's cold

And from out here on the edge of the clearing
where the little animals are living their lives
I can see it for what it is
just a circle made of metal in the mud

Cold crown, cold crown
I don't need to touch it anymore
cold crown, cold crown
let the big ones fight

Miracles and disasters, miracles and disasters
they don't take turns, they never took turns
and I'm done pretending I can sort them into piles
they're all just things that happened while I was trying to live

Cold crown, cold crown
sitting on its stone
I put it down and walked away
I put it down walked away
and my hands are warm

She was my favorite version of me
the one with all of you
the one who felt so loved and safe
she could really be

All the sparkling sides of me
that are usually shuttered deep inside
inside the closets and the wardrobes
of the shuddering corners of my mind

And I hardly ever get to see her now
I hardly ever get to see her
she comes out for a weekend maybe once a year
and then she's gone and I'm the quiet one again

She could talk to anyone
she could light up like she meant it
she could stand in front of strangers
and believe that she was worth the room she filled

And she wasn't faking it, that's the part that kills me
she was real, she was the realest I have ever been
which means the rest of this is what
the in-between? the waiting? the ordinary thing
I do while she's asleep?

All the sparkling sides of me
I keep them folded up so small
inside the closets and the wardrobes
and the wardrobes go so deep
there are whole countries back behind my winter coats
where I am someone brave and bright and tall

She was my favorite version of me
the one with all of you
and I don't know how to get to her
without the room, without the people, without the weekend
without the particular air of a place
where someone knows my name before I say it
Like a prophecy (like a prophecy) (like a prophe-prophecy)

But sometimes late at night I feel her stir
like she's trying on a coat
like she's reaching for a doorknob
in some wardrobe I forgot I had

And I think she's in there still
behind the heavy coats, behind the quiet
in the country where I'm brave
in the place that smells like somewhere I belonged

She was my favorite version of me
and I hardly ever get to see her now
but she's in there
she's in there

All the sparkling sides of me
all the sparkling sides
I'll find the room again
I'll find the people
I'll find the place that feels like her

She was my favorite version of me
the one with all of you
she was the realest I have ever been
and she's in there still

It's not what you said it's what you didn't
it's the picture in the negative space
it's the shape of what's missing from the sentence
that tells me everything your words erased

I've been reading you like a book
that's written in the margins
every pause is a paragraph
every silence is a page

Are you being as careful with me
as I'm being with you
are you weighing every syllable
the way I'm weighing every breath before I speak

Implications, implications
twists in your intonation
the rise at the end that could be a question
or could be a door closing gently

I keep meeting you but are you real
or are you just the version of yourself
that you assemble for the space between us
careful and curated and so close to warm

The sound in the silence
the picture in the negative space
it's not what you drew it's what you left empty
and the empty part is shaped exactly like the truth

When you don't say anything
I feel like I should fill it
but what if the silence was the answer
and I just talked over it

Are you being as careful with me
as I'm being with you
because I am so careful
I am so careful it's almost like a prayer

I notice everything you don't do
every call you didn't make
every word you chose instead of the word
I could feel you almost say

Implications, implications
I live in the implications
I've built a whole house in the negative space
and I don't know if you know I'm in here

The sound in the silence
the picture in the negative space
are you being as careful with me
as I'm being with you

Because I'm holding every word up to the light
turning it, turning it
looking for the thing inside the thing
and I don't know if you put it there
or if I'm the one who's making shapes
out of the empty air again

Are you being as careful with me
as I'm being with you
or am I reading a book
that nobody wrote

I fought so hard and long for so little
I don't know how to handle the feast
that's in front of me now
the abundance is drowning everything out

There's a tree in a courtyard I remember
and it grows every kind of fruit at once
and they glitter like they're crusted in sugar
like little jewels, like crystallized light
like something a fairy would trick you into tasting

And I'm standing underneath it with my hands out
and every branch is heavy and it's bending down to me
and I keep thinking someone's going to tell me
not to touch, not to pick, not to eat

You only need one tree
when it grows every kind of fruit
you only need to win one fight
when it's the boss battle
and on the other side is the epic loot

Pom-a-pomegranate red
and plum (plum) so dark it's purple
golden apri-apricot (apricot)
and berries bright as blue (blue) sky
peach skin blush-blushing in the sun-sunlight
(blushing, blushing)
and little green pears
all of them glowing
all of them ripe
(all of them ripe)

I fought so hard and long for so little
I don't know how to handle the feast
that's in front of me now
the abundance is drowning everything out

I pick one and it's real
it has weight, it has juice, it's warm from the sun
this thing I spent years reaching for
and it's sweeter than I thought a real thing could be

My hands still shake when good things happen
my hands still curl around the empty
I keep rehearsing the apology
for wanting more than I was given

You only need one tree
when it grows every kind of fruit
you only need to win one fight
when it's the boss battle
and on the other side is the epic loot

If life is a game
I don't believe in reincarnation
I don't want to play this one again from the beginning
I fought my way to this courtyard once
and once is all I had in me
I'm good with playing it only once

I fought so hard and long for so little
I don't know how to handle the feast
that's in front of me now
but the tree is heavy and the fruit is sweet
and no one is coming to take it away

You only need one tree
when it grows every kind of fruit
and I'm picking one of each kind
one of every kind
pomegranate, apricot, plum
and the sweetness is so bright it makes me cry

You only need one tree
you only need one tree
when it grows every kind of fruit

I keep my corner of the wasteland really nice
I hung up lights where the old walls fell
I planted something stubborn in the cinder and the ash
and it bloomed like a secret I'll never tell

But in the distance, the Goblin City shines…

Oh it shines, how it shines
the way that goblin magic does
honeyed light and music out of time
and everyone inside is dancing, they're all dancing
spinning through their beautiful illusions

I made it to the Goblin City
and I faced the Goblin King
but he cast me out when I wouldn't bow down
and now I bite my tongue
to avoid arguing with the lesser demons
who still hassle me at his bidding

I was the one who saw the strings
I was the one who called the banquet what it was
and the punishment for seeing through the shimmer
is they take away the taste and leave the hunger

And knowing doesn't help, oh knowing never helps
because the facade is so beautiful it aches
and everything out here is ash and echo
next to the honeyed nectar of the goblin feasts

I keep my corner of the wasteland really nice
I make things here that glow without the glamour
I set them in the rubble like a jeweler sets a stone
and the light they give is quiet but it's mine

I made it to the Goblin City
and I faced the Goblin King
and I'd do it again, I'd call it out again
even though I bite my tongue
to avoid arguing with the lesser demons
who still hassle and harass at distant king's bidding

And the lesser demons circle, leave their little marks
scratching at the windows, running the old script
and the king has long forgotten but his echoes haven't
and I'm tired of fighting off the ghosts of a grudge

So I tend what I've grown, what I've sewn from the ash
I build in a light that doesn't shimmer and doesn't lie
and it's small and it's true
and it's nothing like the goblin glow
but the things I make are real and they survive

But some nights I look up at the city on the hill
and the music drifts down, and the golden light
and I remember what it felt like to be dancing
before I saw the strings, before I pulled them tight

I keep my corner of the wasteland really nice
it's real and it's warm and it's mine
and the goblin light is beautiful but cold
and I know that, oh I know that, oh I know

I made it to the Goblin City
and I faced the Goblin King
and I don't even think about it most days
but I still bite my tongue
when the lesser demons come; they're just echoes now
running errands for a king who's forgotten

I keep my corner of the wasteland really nice
and some days that's enough
and some days I can still see the city
shining like it shines for everyone but me

And I keep my corner really nice
I keep it really nice
I keep it really nice

I made it to the Goblin City once
and the wasteland's not so bad
I keep it really nice

I wandered lonely as a cloud
through an ordinary afternoon
and then I turned a corner and the field was full of gold
ten thousand daffodils all nodding in the breeze
(fluttering and dancing)
and I stood there and I let them fill me

Beside the lake, beneath the trees
(fluttering and dancing)
they stretched as far as I could see
and every single one of them
was more than what it seemed to be

Every daffodil is a castle
every bouquet is a banquet
every petal is a page
that someone brave can write their life onto

I've been a wave without a shore for so long
just rolling and rolling through the open dark
but I can see it now, I can finally see it
and the shore is covered in daffodils

When every little thing that's ever happened to you
brought you to this particular moment
standing in a field you didn't know was there
and the gold is almost more than you can hold
(more than you can bear)

And sometimes when I lie awake, they come back to me
the way Wordsworth said they would
that inward eye, that bliss of solitude
when the world goes quiet and the golden field returns

(golden, golden field)
(fields of gold, golden, gold)

Every impossible place I've ever loved
every bright thing burning in the dark
every version of myself I thought I'd lost
they're all still blooming, they're all still there
(fluttering and dancing)

Every daffodil is a dancer
(sprightly, sprightly dancing)
every bouquet is a banquet
every stem is a story, reaching toward the sky
and they're all still standing in the gold

From the right angle almost anything can be a song
from the right angle almost anything can shine
any feeling that left you reeling
or just a quiet moment alone in your mind
and I have been so many things in this one life
and all of them are daffodils
and all of them are mine

I wandered lonely but I wasn't really lonely
I was just between the fields
I was a wave between the shores
and the next one's always closer than you think
and the gold is always waiting

Every daffodil is a twinkling star
(shining continuously in the sky)
every bouquet is a banquet
anything's possible
when you remember how to wonder
when you remember
when you remember

The daffodils are blooming
the daffodils are blooming
all across the Milky Way