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LOST MIRROR

by That Dream Was Our Life

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1.
The city waits behind the fog Like a smile behind your hair The flight attendant says it won't be long Until we're safely in the air Moving on a holiday Nightmares & fights still echo off the walls A coat of paint over the year It's like you were never there at all The glow that lights your face It's keeping me awake It makes me more of a fool It makes me less of a fake My heart see-saws down Cherry St It rises & falls every time you laugh The blue of distance in your eyes reminds me All things die but sometimes they come back The glow that lights your face It's keeping me awake It makes me more of a fool It makes me less of a fake Most people are terrified, including me Of showing their true heart There's a beauty & a comfort & a helplessness in knowing what you are Someone's singing on a subway car A 90 second serenade I'm swimming in these dreams of you Tea leaves & flowers are floating in your wake The glow that lights your face It's keeping me awake It makes me more of a fool It makes me less of a fake
2.
Which one is harder to hold A stone or a feather We could be lighter than air But let's see what shatters Worlds that we represent Full of gold & abstraction Light shines on what we project And love's a reflection Am I better off alone No illusion of control Hope costs too much to pretend So confused How do you want this to end A song on repeat all night Broken laws of attraction Just cause we want something It doesn't mean it should happen Am I better off alone No illusion of control Hope costs too much to pretend So confused How do you want this to end Fourteen stations since I've knelt before temptation Are we just iterations of partners or possessions A dozen seasons since I've made my last confession Desire blurs our visions but I don't even question Am I better off alone No illusion of control Hope costs too much to pretend So confused How do you want this to end
3.
I Can Wait 03:41
Desires that you want That can never be An endless summer's heart A lock without a key Fire down the block & horror movie screams 90 days of sun escaping from the street Tell me what you want I'll see what can do I can wait, I can wait Can't wait forever but I'll wait I can wait, I can wait Can't wait forever but I'll wait A flash before the cold A beauty that defies The summer in its throes For everything that dies What you gonna do when you don't belong Where you gonna go when you can't go home How far we gonna go when we've gone too far How deep you gonna fall you can Call it what you want It doesn't make it true I can wait, I can wait Can't wait forever but I'll wait I can wait, I can wait Can't wait forever but I'll wait You can throw away what's bitter So upset & insecure Some things are meant to wither Some are meant to be endured A slow dance slowing faster We're getting closer to the end The less it seems to matter for a heart to win I can wait, I can wait Can't wait forever but I'll wait I can wait, I can wait Can't wait forever but I'll wait You can throw away what's bitter So obsessed & insecure Some things are meant to wither Some are meant to be endured A slow dance slowing faster We're getting closer to the end The less it seems to matter for a heart to win
4.
Highway 10 03:52
Highway 10, Highway 10, so close to where you used to live A room of neverwinter nights in a city full of light Highway 10, Highway 10, shadows cast over the west The direction of decline, graffiti saints & painted vines Can you leave a memory behind We repeat ourselves a hundred times I don't believe in destiny or signs But I can see how you could change my mind Highway 10, Highway 10, falling backwards once again Is love another name for the pain that's in your way Highway 10, Highway 10, lying dreamless in your bed We can try to make amends for fantasies that we invent Can you leave a memory behind We repeat ourselves a thousand times I don't believe in destiny or signs But I can see how you could change my mind Highway 10, Highway 10, the future that it represents I wish that you'd come back to me but you & I we are not free Highway 10, Highway 10, where dreams go to meet their end It's the closest to escape I'll ever get Can you leave a memory behind We repeat ourselves a million times I don't believe in destiny or signs But I can see that you could change my mind You could change my mind
5.
This is how it ends In summer heat & wind The water's flooding in Even ghosts abandon ship They only haunt the ones who live Charmed by your city once again Tracing circles on your skin A light I can't resist I'm holding you but nothing sticks I know that we won't win This is how it hurts Perfume clinging to my shirt Blood descends over the earth A hand rises from the dirt Half-measures never work This is how it dies Eyes burning dark & wild A flame loses half its light Can you bring it back to life With the magic of a smile The only one who asks about me The only one who ever knows a thing about me When you had something to tell me Two years disappeared beneath me This is how it ends You've got a shiny life to live Steps you can't retrace A name you cannot say If you stay all is forgiven The only one who asks about me The only one who ever gives a damn about me When I had something to tell you I didn't say it just to hear you say you love me too
6.
Voices ring louder & later through the night Summer's breaking out like a thief for the light Days are running long & longer by the hour I haven't seen you in an age & I wonder how you are Caught in dancing lights that call you by your name I felt intoxicated with no desire for escape The city keeps its heat like gold around your finger I tried to ring you up because I missed you But I couldn't find a signal The deeper that we fall the longer that we grieve A prison of the heart that we never want to leave We think we have to learn courage to be saved We think we need it to survive but surviving makes you brave You're packed for California, I'm heading to New York I'm sleeping in the car & someone's at the door The night is full of stars & ways to disappear I still feel you through the bars & I wish that you were here I wish that you were here
7.
Put up your hair, free drinks in the air Put on the red leather jacket that you always wear We forget our shadows when we learn to dance To the sound of dreams that shatter before they turn to ash Someone drew a heart in the window of the bar The condensation shimmered in the light like a thousand blinking stars You said "I need someone to complete me" I said my heart belongs to someone I can't have You said "Don't you think it's kind of funny what makes most people happy can make them feel so sad" You fumbled with your lock & you stumbled through the door You said "Can you help me with these pants" as you sprawled out on the floor Most boys prefer you when you're drunk But I don't want the same things that they want I don't want throwaway people or counterfeits I don't want bells & whistles or special effects I don't want someone clever just give me hope I don't want someone who's always giving up I don't know if I'll ever learn but I'm older now Propped you up & waited till you woke up on your couch Walked home in the dark feeling like a shrunken head Severed to survive the curses of the dead
8.
Walking by your house on the way home The lights inside your windows are never on Are you asleep, are you alone, is it anybody's business but your own 2AM on 9th street's full of light I always pull my hood over my eyes Neon disappointment & ultraviolet dreams will only leave you blind Maybe I would only let you down Baby I could only weigh you down Party lights that spin blue green & red Like the internal conversations that I dread Some mysteries are better left alone & better left unsaid Maybe I would only let you down Baby I could only weigh you down Am I only repeating the mistakes of my life A different hotel, the same jokes every night Hope & temptation come from the devil The way I care for you is nothing special I've been starving myself, listening to Ex:Re & feeling almost spectral Maybe I would only let you down Baby I could only weigh you down Am I always repeating the mistakes of my life The same disaffection & regret every night
9.
Desire Paths 03:11
Grieve another year away The heart will take as long as it will take Another page of endless days Beauty feels like destiny But destiny is never what it seems Sometimes dreams are only dreams All the signs you hoped were true Desires that you kept in view Always find a way of falling through You can take another path The one you find & not the one you planned The lines we draw are made in sand I don't want to find someone when I know that I'm better off alone I don't want to fall in love but I'll drown if I fill my heart with stone Sometimes when I catch your eye An inside joke, a secret smile It makes me feel a little more alive Late nights when we're driving home It's freezing cold, your eyes are still aglow Desire paths we'll never know I don't want to find someone when I know that I'm better off alone I don't want to fall in love but I'll drown if I fill my heart with stone
10.
Trust in your surrender is the only way through fear These nights go on forever February lasts a year Staring up the second floor Bars on the revolving door Sometimes you feel you've had enough but you always ask for more Pretty words, hidden debt All of mine for all of yours Pay it down Every face you've dreamed is one you've seen before The first stop, the last hope You should never have to choose Sometimes I pretended every single word was true If I keep you out of reach then I never have to lose Sometimes I pretended every single word was true
11.
Dark Mode 03:30
I'm losing daylight The path's descending Edges growing dark I don't know what's happening I write down all my dreams Like it could bring them closer Some nightmares repeat Like patterns on a sweater Window panes & wishes Shimmer in your eyes Hair spilled in spells & kisses As radiant as fire A band around your wrist I'm wrapped around your finger If I could give you more Would you stay forever These are the days to open up your heart Before bitterness arrives with the poison that it brings An abandoned heart can stay broken forever So if it wants to sing If it wants to sing Let it sing I'm always out of time & love is a mystery I'm hoping that you'll find something that I can't even see in me You're always on my mind, I think about you when I sing If we let this feeling die, will you still dream about me
12.
Sarah & I were leaving Salt Lake City Searching for a bar that looked like Howl's Moving Castle The clouds are rolling down are you coming with me Illusions only serve to obscure the answers We can't speak to the past but the past can reach the future Pretty words & bluebells for a dead bouquet All my dreams burned out before they could even reach you Hope draws like blood & leaves you just as drained It's been lonelier than it's been cold And this winter's been colder than most I believe in love but not in its permanence But I'm happier than I was before we met You can only say so much out of chance or danger You're always on my mind but I'm trying to forget It's not minutes but it's moments that make it real If I believe this can I love you without fear

about

I guess it's a lazy way of writing but each of the twelve tracks on LOST MIRROR includes things that really happened, places I got lost, & people I poured my entire heart into over the past year. All things die but sometimes they come back & I just wanted to tell the truth in these songs & make something that reminds me of what's beautiful xx

*All songs selected from my 2019 EP series. Please check out the Subscribe link above to support my releases in 2020*

credits

released January 24, 2020

Written in Notebook #4 & Google Keep
Recorded to iPhone & edited in Audacity
Front cover photo by Michelle Moriarty @ ARTECHOUSE, Washington DC 7/19/2019
Back cover photo @ Souvenir Jewelry, Philadephia PA 2/16/19

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about

That Dream Was Our Life Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Introspective & prolific, James Cuartero AKA That Dream Was Our Life has been making music as a solo artist since 2014. Described as "a thinking man’s songwriter who stays away from the trap of being defined by a single genre", Cuartero has released fifty EPs, six compilations, & numerous singles over the past ten years. No t-shirts though. ... more

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