Real Death

	  		    
      C 
Death is real 
           G 
Someone's there and then they're not 
                   F 
And it's not for singing about 
               G 
It's not for making into art 
      F9         F 
When real death enters the house 
     Em 
All poetry is dumb 
     F9  F   G 
When I  walk in 
        C     G       Am 
To the room where you were 
     F    G 
And look into 
      C   C/B    F 
The emptiness instead 
      G 
All fails 
     F 
My knees fail 
    Am 
My brain fails 
        C 
Words fail 
G 
Crusted with tears, catatonic and raw 
   F                                       Am 
I go downstairs and outside and you still get mail 
   C                C/B                    Am 
A week after you died a package with your name on it came 
     G              F                       G 
And inside was a gift for our daughter you had ordered in secret 
      C                      G             Am   G 
And collapsed there on the front steps I wailed 
    F                    E                       A5 
A backpack for when she goes to school a couple years from now 
           Bm                   C 
You were thinking ahead to a future 
                G                       Am 
You must have known deep down would not include you 
              G                           F 
Though you clawed at the cliff you were sliding down 
          G              C 
Being swallowed into a silence 
           G            Am  Am/G 
That is bottomless and real 
      G 
It's dumb 
                      F 
And I don't want to learn anything from this 
   Am 
I love you