I have been looking for comfort in familiarity, wrapping fingers around warm and swallowing melodies and harmonies and advertisement jingles. I have been smoking air and trying to understand the polite and not-so-polite ways people step over and around and between the subject of death.

I have been obsessively and compulsively listening to Hem, Eveningland.

As I waited in line at the wake for almost three hours to get in to give them everything I could while trying not to take too much this song played and replayed and played in the space of my head. It gave me comfort.

Carry Me Home

We were raised in the nettles
And they showed us how they grow--
Where a poison comes to settle
And what a poisoned man comes to know

So me and Jessie, we left Ohio--
Left him bleeding on the valley floor
I felt so dirty I could hardly stand it--
Carrying Jessie on my back

She said, hold on, I know you'll bury him for me
Hold on, I know you'll bury him for me
Hold on, I know you'll carry me and carry me and
Carry me home

Tell me nothing's wrong there
Tell me nothing's wrong there
Tell me nothing's wrong there

Nothing's wrong there
Nothing's wrong there
Nothing's wrong there

--Dan Messe