A new name for everything.

When the bus-shelter windows and napkin-dispensers surprise
with distorted reflections, it's never the someone you're hoping to recognize.
And the rent is too high living here between reasons to live,
where you can't sleep alone, and your memories groan, and the borders of night start to give.
When you can't save
cash or conviction; you're broke and you're breaking - a tired shoelace or a wave.
So long past, past-due. A new name for everything.
When the one-ways collude with the map that you folded wrong,
and the route you abandoned is always the path that you probably should be upon.
When the bottle-cap ashtrays and intimate's ears are all full
with results of your breath
and the threads of your fear are unfurled with the tiniest pull.
One more time, try.
Stand with your hands in your pockets and stare at the smudge on a newspaper sky,
and ask it to rain a new name for everything.
Fire every phrase.
They don't want to work
for us anymore.
Dot and dash our days.
Make your face the flag
of a semaphore.
All you won't show.
The boxes you brought here and never unpacked are still patiently waiting to go.
So put on those clothes you never grew in to,
and smile like you mean it for once.
If you come back, bring
a new name for everything.

- John K. Samson and The Weakerthans