I’ll call you when it starts to snow 

When you’re still deeply breathing 

No matter how I come and go 

Feels like I’m always leaving 

And I move faster every time 

My body is still reeling 

The fear of losing your own mind 

When it’s the first time you’re really feeling 

But if you tell me it had been a dream 

I wanna go now, don’t want to be seen 

Won’t get in the way of anybody’s heart 

I just want to get out before it starts 

Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me 

You gotta stop calling me 

When you’ve got another sweetheart 

I’ve been searching far and wide  

For someone to keep us apart 

There’ll be no tears, no jealousy 

We don’t owe each other nothing 

That’s the pull in possibility 

But if you get none, can’t be no fussing 

But if you tell me it had been a dream 

I wanna go now, don’t want to be seen 

Won’t get in the way of anybody’s heart 

I just want to get out before it starts 

To hurt me, don’t hurt me 

I’ll call you when it starts to snow 

When you’re still deeply breathing 

No matter how I come and go 

Feels like I’m always leaving 

And love it ain’t a conscious thing 

And my body is still reeling 

The fear of losing everything 

When it’s the first time you’re really feeling 

Our love was quite the whirlwind 

Married by the time I was nineteen 

Living in a prefab out in Cremorne  

The force of a fire front was raging in you  

We fucked like we fought, ripped the flesh from the sinew  

No greater fever between any two  

And you’d say, darling, sometimes I feel dangerous 

Darkness stretching, no light nowhere, dangerous 

You quit the navy, got your union tatts 

And with your land legs your great thirst came back  

While your children grew up quiet in another room 

You packed it in when I packed up the kids 

Said you were terrified of all those things I told you that you did 

Said you didn’t understand the rage that could devour you   

And you said, darling, sometimes I feel dangerous 

Darkness waiting, no light nowhere, dangerous  

When there’s fighting in the factions  

There’s no decisions, just a set of reactions  

We drove the camel pelt country down the shimmering Hume 

To where your aunts rode trams in wisteria hue  

And you set about hosing the tiles in your sticky soul  

You weeded out those rotten roots from down in the marrow  

Taught the union boys the power in the straight and the narrow 

To them you were a father, a healer, a tower, a force  

Your own father you couldn’t talk to easily  

To say, there’s something in you, and I’m terrified it might be in me 

So you grew up pushing it away  

But I’m so proud of you, and my love is a monster 

Ain’t luck that got you through, you earned everything that belongs to ya 

Our kids will come ‘round, they gotta find out for themselves    

That darling the truth is sometimes it’s dangerous 

Darkness stretches, there’s no light nowhere, dangerous  

But there are floodlights hiding, waiting for us to do the deciding 

There is hope under the heavy, high tightrope we’re all walking over our brevity   

There is bounty in the burden, a freedom in never being certain   

Dangerous  

I watch dust being spat up by a squall 
Small stones splitting, kicked against the wall 
I’m buzzing but I can’t barely move   
Hands clenched red ‘til I let them loose  
I course like a storm drain in a flood 
Tight vein rushing full of golden blood 

 These bells still ring and I’m still shivering  
You still sing through the recesses of everything 
A part of me is spinning urgency 
If let it in again then it’s shame on me  

Roots of a tree that should long be felled 
What the eye don’t see the stomach will still tell 
I grew underneath the western sun 
Bright blue cut by the bitumen  
Small hand safe inside a larger fist  
Small pain growing slowly like a cyst   

 Is it a foolish thing that I’m still waiting 
Your tongue stings through the Trojan platitudes you bring   
What I need from you and what you can be 
If I fool myself, then it’s shame on me  

New city, much less open sky 
I’ve never felt more like I could fly  
I’m setting you finally adrift 
Big hooks pulling loose before the shift 
On this shore there are castles of my own 
In a bed tiny buds that I will grow 
Your eyes are with me everywhere I go  
They are leopards hunting in the snow  

When I made a start pulling all this apart 
I found you still in the very centre of my heart   
But there’s so much of you, no other light gets through  
I can’t see anymore, and I’ve got work to do   

Big city, give it to me    
Big city, I want everything that feeds me    
Disappear into your blood  
Big City, I’m ready for ya  

 Big city, it’s just you and me 
I’m we’re gonna be welcoming the good things 
Steel eyes, matter of trust  
Big city, I am enough  

Big city, give it to me    
Big city, I want everything that feeds me    
Disappear into your blood  
Big City, I’m ready for ya  

 Big city, it’s just you and me 
We’re gonna be welcoming the good things 
Steel eyes, matter of trust  
Big city, I am enough  

Strange light, evensong, river gums paint on the glassy Murray  
We’ve been smoking and the silty dust straps our feet, bare as a baby  
If this day was the last, I’d have been happier than I ever thought I’d be  
And I’ll suspend all that needs to be tended to, to watch the waning sun of January  

How I wish I could live in my hindsight, safe in the prism of the past 
I was melancholic even as a child, I would yearn for days older, to feel tugs on lines already cast 
I feel it in my throat, that’s where my sadness sleeps and grows when I let it 
It makes it hard to swallow without tears pushing, under the waning sun of January  

My ancestors were always songs in my neck   
Northerners and Irish, the cold and the coal  
They waited in me ‘til I was quiet enough  
They sang together until their sadness was still  
I am their keeper of their best and their worst 
They flow through me, all their songs and their thirsts 
All that they gave me, all of my choices 
My head’s full of a choir of a thousand voices 

I am walking inside myself 
Now that these streets belong to someone else 
But I feel new blood running through my hands 
Deep in my pockets as the shadows here expand 

 The city I love it ain’t my city no more 
The house we grew up in doesn’t stand here anymore 
The swarm of change has sent its huge flanks wide  
I’m gonna watch ships come in on another tide  

 Little tiny baby I’ll never let you down  
But I cried in the morning just to hear a sound 
Don’t you worry darling I won’t give you up   
But I’m here in the middle and in the middle isn’t far enough  

 I used to walk here in the winter time 
The quiet streets washed out by yellow lights 
Brown paper in the window where our days were spent  
Coffee like nectar, now they can’t afford the rent  

A wave of grief looms over me 
And I cower in the indents of my history  
So I’m leaving here before here leaves me 
No need to tread damp sands where rivers once flowed out to sea  

Little tiny baby I won’t let you down  
Cos I cried in the morning just to hear a sound 
Don’t you worry darling I won’t give you up   
But I’m here in the middle and in the middle isn’t far enough  

Every numbered track that binds these suburbs to each other 
Every length of fresh chalked line, bluestone lane, brick wall and gutter 
Every house I got fucked up in ‘til they all looked like any other   
Informs it all since I could crawl, you taught me all I know 
Victoria  

I’ve never seen you here before 
Have you got time for just one more  
This rain won’t let up for an hour at least 
And I don’t have anywhere I have to be   

Around here there’s not much else to do 
I wouldn’t mind sitting down and spending time with you   
A silicone ball measures kilos so they’re the same everywhere   
You know I never think about it, so much of what goes on out there   
Sound waves measure a metre in metric, and imperial  
What are the feet, would you say, between our table and that bar stool   

Tell me more about what you do 
I’ve never met anyone who knows as much as you  
I could keep asking you things eternally 
So much of what you’ve been saying deeply appeals to me  
I’ll try to keep my questions linear, try to articulate exactly what I mean 
You better bring the bottle back, look like the rain’s gonna settle in   

So what’s the weight of the booze, would you measure that in milliliters 
How many years have I lost, I’d only count them if I was a defeatist 
But the only thing wasted here is that wine if don’t finish my drink  
Is it numbers and scales to you 
Tell me how you see the things that I do 
Man I’d love to be inside of your head 
Cos mine’s getting harder to bare 

Things are getting darker, it’s feeling harder, I can’t remember 
Where were we, I’m sorry 

 
I’ve been trying to keep straight, trying to keep it together  
But these tiny little tremors getting heavier and heavier 
The numbers confuse me, I don’t understand and now I have this strange swelling in both of my hands  
I got the wrong shoes on, not prepared for the terrain,  
It’s so pretty up here but I’m preoccupied with the pain  
Can you tell me how long before I disappear  
What’s the point look like at which I am no longer here  
If my body’s too heavy and my list’s too long  
Have I failed as a woman ‘cos my measurements are wrong  
The goalposts keep shifting, the ball slippery with rain  
They want us to compete but they won’t put us in the game  
What’s the unit for the negative shit in my head that only drowns when I down a solid litre before bed  
Is it something scientific, is it brain chemistry, or am I just a product of myself, of panic and ennui   
And how long is it before you forget who you are 
While some talent spider tells you that you’re too fat to be a star 
Or a critic says your record sounds too much like your boyfriend Even though you wrote every fucking riff on the album  
You’re too depressing, too obtuse, too aggressive, too aloof 
Too demanding, too uptight, don’t live up to any hype  
Either too old to be relevant or too young to be resonant 
Addictions picking off mates like they’re all social experiments 
All the kicking, all the pricks, all the leaches, snakes and ticks 
All the hours on the road, lonely brain bound to implode,  
Psyche shrieking out the back, bills are waiting in a growing stack  
You’re working like a dog but you got nothing to show for that  

You gotta help me understand what you do 
I’ve never known anyone that keeps everything as straight as you 
There was a time I had all in my fist 
Now I’m seriously considering becoming a metrologist 

Terra Nullius, my island, my despicable beast 
An arch into the ocean as your birth was blocked in breach 
And in the ready wild my body and my soul 
Divide themselves between you and the blood that’s in my bones  

In the early winters there lay slicks upon the flats 
From the snow that split from mountains that would thud and puff and crack 
The white birds shrieking murder through the drifts of clouds and sparks 
And nested in the tallest, thick with scent and dripping bark   

In me, my spirit feels unease, a great nausea 
That ties my tongue and swells my gut and aches and pulls and tugs 
My instinct cannot reconcile the things that I now know 
Those strong hands slapped away like children at a bowl 

 Will I ever know real knowledge, is it even mine to change 
I dreamt I saw an answer and a child’s was its face 
I am sorry, I am sorry and my children will be too 
If I don’t any better with the blood that’s in my bones

I was around my part of town 
Kicking up dust with my restless feet 
A lot of time to think, even more time to drink 
As I watched the autumn devour the heat  

Little fears, little loves 
It’s never enough 
Now I’m getting sick from this lukewarm blood 
When we see who we are 
Every secret, every scar 
It’s only that moment that we’ll feel love  

Sydney’s on fire, so pretty it hurts my eyes 
The jewel in our ever rotting crown 
I gotta get out, is that what it’s about 
If I stand on the edges I ain’t coming down 

Gotta sail through the fear 
Push off from the pier 
And watch as the headlands open up 
When we see who we are 
Every secret, every scar 
It’s only that moment that we’ll feel love 

 I was alone, never felt better though 
I was hoping the conversation wouldn’t end 
Like a bird from above, you swept me up 
And we hung on the thermals, wings outstretched 

 Gotta sail through the fear 
Push off from the pier 
And watch as the headlands open up 
When we see who we are 
Every secret, every scar 
It’s only that moment that we’ll feel love 

 Little fears, little loves 
It’s never enough 
Now I’m getting sick from this lukewarm blood 
When we see who we are 
Every secret, every scar 
It’s only that moment that we’ll feel love 

Here is morning and I don’t rest like I used to 
I’ve been dreaming of you, I dreamt I lost you in a snowstorm 
Pathetic heart is aching for your body 
My angry mind is screaming to stay away 

 Watched myself, there was shame in my reflection 
Clean my hands and eyes, take them from my body, I don’t need them 
And in the dark I see a light is coming 
I’ve been crouching here so long I don’t remember if I can walk  

 I’ll be happy, I’ll lie down in gentle pastures 
Where I tasted sunlight, it was sweet, it made me silent 
And while we wait let’s be kind to one another 
No second thoughts, no parting words, we’ve done that enough  

I want to tell you about some of those nights  
You say I never talk about my history  
Close your eyes, can you smell the rain on the reserve dripping through the pines   
Winter, Melbourne, end of the nineties   

Me and my friends, my girls, my family  
Our worlds were dark, we were each others beauty   

The rough of the red school jumper on my arm 
The catch of each drag sparking deep in my chest  
We sat at tables made from crates in a garage  
I’d only take half at a time, I was always too scared    

That’s when I found a friend to give me rest from the exhaustion   
What do you mean there’s something that can take this pain away  

The club in the city we could never find again 
Marked by projected light out on the bluestone  
Conspiratorial on leather, dirty speed in our veins  
Emerging into the watery light of the morning   
The first tram, shift change and the waiting for sleep under doonas 
With my friends, my girls, my family  

Pitch black skies between villages out in the Ruhr  
Negative ten, ice in the air, sickly hot in this three-door Audi 
So high, rushing past the sparkles out on the snowy fields  
The thud of the bass underneath my body   
And a bed, not mine, not my boyfriend’s  
When he was out of my sight and I was out of my mind 
I was dumb but I wasn’t bad, I was endlessly angry 
I missed my mum and then I missed my Dad  
I kept pouring it in to fill me  
And I’m afraid still as then of all the things that are in me  
I am humbled by my history  

We do what we can to feel loved, to feel safe, to feel wanted 
And we fail, we get it wrong, we grab and we reach, we hurt the ones we love 
I miss the oblivion sometimes like it’s an old friend 
Anger is sadness, control ends in madness, we all have it in us, we are everything at once   

We are all the same