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Even Fuckboys Get The Blues

by Matthew Milia

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1.
I'm going down to Somerset solo The bummer that you met in the long-sleeved polo On the skywalk where the passers-by talk Sassy upper-classers and their bastardized "YOLO" Carpe diem ideology free 'em from the prepubescent Designer tedium Treadmill motion on a retrograde track Fanny pack holding such uncanny lack Thinking about the freshman year Christmas dance Bump and grind in tightening pants Corsage pinned in my collarbone flesh Teenage gowns of gauze and mesh I saw the best minds of my generation pissed Or brain-freezed up at the Tasty Twist Ziploc'ed, unredeemed Chuck E. Cheese tix That my grandma saved for me when I was six We used to sneak into the Christmas Eve gifts Now it's all spotty sex and Netflix rifts Here's what I got you for Christmas this year, dear A seashell which, if you put it to your ear hear Me crying like a hundred manger babies With my eyes frothing like a dachshund with rabies Now you're the one to exploit my grief The way they portray Detroit's need for relief Fruit cakes, fruit flies, fermentation of piss In the urinal of your new abyss Your teary-eyed, weary pride, insipid blues I'm gonna mention them in all my interviews I told you not to stuff that napkin in that drawer You're gonna find it someday and feel so sore I wish I didn't wake to your dead lake eyes There's a universe of images I'd rather cognize Like my grandma's slender waist cutting cake at her wedding Or my father's tender face As a toddler off sledding I hope your cigarette always stays long And your dirty dishes clank to a Christmas song (That's Teemu's squeak-toy)
2.
Mid-November 100.3 Have yourself A Merry Little Christmas, baby I hardly ever leave the house I wish that I was back In your little red shack I am home from war or some tour of some blurry life To some November world where You're not my girl or my wife Drive to Somerset Mall and my sweat pants fall Move down Square Lake Road In broken code In a trance, all That I could ever need Is to know there's no loss What could supersede Your warm sheets, my Ms. Santa Claus There's the subdivision That my nana lives in, where Christmas lives in basement boxes and 90s sitcom television Mid-November WNIC I'll be home for Christmas Alone with Bing Crosby Drive down 275 Inside my heated orb Pretend I'm picking up your Absent ghost from the airport But I woke up in Frandor Plaza In the middle of the night There was no one there Just blinding light In fifteen years, Somerset Mall will be Just like them all Summit Place Dump it all to waste I pass the white roadside domes Where the past plays indoor soccer I pass the bright mansion homes Where the dusk collects in lockers I pass the night as it combs Its way into my adult hair I pass the light as the night Stings youth with its sharp air Merry Christmas, everyone I see my world so undone And gone But where to? Oh, you Happy New Year too (Last New Year's you past through here on the way to your new life and in the childhood bedroom of my father's house I made believe you were my wife. Your car got stained white in the blizzard world, looking frozen like it had traveled through time through that blizzard world we knew together. You left and I can't make coffee without being overwhelmed by the simultaneous reminder and absence of your simple sweetness.) Merry Christmas, coffee pot It's beginning to look a whole lot like Christmas
3.
Wanna Turn 04:08
What keeps you up at night? Anticipation or the fright? Is there still a chance you might Never wanna turn away from Last year's holy light? Do you still wear those wings? The silver ones that I bought you last year? I suppose those are the sort of things That get put away When foreign friends start to appear I don't think about you down in that booth In the end when you tried to look so hard I think about the mornings and your chipped tooth But I don't care about the truth If you don't care about my heart I go down to Waterford alone I'm taking back the places that were mine The flea market where faces made of stone Make it known The empty space beside me in the line But I don't think about you down in that window frame All the snows got in and exposed that risky flame I don't think about you much of anywhere at all Last year's holy light is too bright to cling to or view you At all What keeps you up at night? Anticipation or the fright? Is there still a chance you might Never wanna turn away from Last year's holy light? 'Cause if I met you tonight I'd wanna turn To try to do it over right If it all started tonight I'd wanna turn To try to keep that holy light Wanna turn
4.
Early winter morning and the moon's up in a gray sky There's a girl with a duller sun and a black moon to color each eye Up in Traverse City where the winter is so shitty And the prettiness of blue ice Is so sad When the thaw sneaks in and the snowmobiles sink Into the lakes And all winter all you did was drink And make a few mistakes You can feel so bad One night I was driving and the world seemed so conniving Bit my face and wasted all the blood saved for surviving Julie was a Catholic in the wrath of young Petoskey Catholic blood, like summer mud, it's warmed up by the whiskey And I went to St. Hugo, way downstate in Oakland County When July comes it dumbs you to just buy into the bounty Julie, in the summer when you're standing besides The melted lakes And everywhere you turn are the whitest of brides Cutting wedding cakes Early winter morning and the moon's up in the day sky There's a girl with a duller sun and a black moon to color each eye
5.
Song for Ben 03:10
Coffee in the afternoon Coffee in the evening Temperature was opportune You can smell the day's heat leaving People getting famous And they jet them to a distant planet All that remains nameless Can never be taken for granted You kiss her and she tastes like gin She tastes like pine needles When you kiss she tastes whiskey But these things don't impede wills The car window is whistling Your fingers smell like lighter fluid The heater's on and hissing And the equilibrium is humid Late June and the tents are strewn All across some lakeshore All your friends and dividends They impugn any ache, you're Breathing in the color And exhale black and white smoke duller But beautiful to see You're just young as you'll ever be
6.
Winter rains and window panes And the banes of my existence Dish racks and the swishing smacks Of Paris in the distance Go online for a Valentine Or a version of the New Year Impersonating some young face of mine Seen once in her mirror Paloma has a voice That is womanly and choice And throaty in the moment That she speaks Met her once or twice And it always was nice But I've thought about her When the midnight sneaks Off to the vague dark blue Again When every brand of love I've bought's been Marked up and expired And the smell of pencils keeps me up When childhood's rewired I've talked to her till the strange daybreak and dawn Got reacquainted I've walked with her on mental sidewalks snowed on And ice-painted I've kept a cabinet of French verbs and backup contact lenses Imaginary rescues that I guard with self-defenses I sang to her for one whole night In the silliest of tenses On some sweet night I'll make her sing for me As my throat clenches Because Paloma has a voice That is womanly and choice And throaty in the moment That she speaks Met her once or twice And it always was nice But I've thought about her When the midnight sneaks Off to the vague dark blue Again
7.
Went Down 02:16
I turned 27 On the day of the election Teleported rudely to some movie We once saw Despite my soft intentions And Amtrak missed connections I never thought you'd hurt me Or desert me here so raw You fucked over me So I will not be seeing you The way that shit went down's a shame It's true I never thought that we Could be estranged from what we knew Turns out I didn't know A thing about you Maybe you will wise up When the puddle around your platforms dries up I don't care, I won't be there To hear your giggle then With all your pretty knick-knacks In your bedroom with my heart attacks Is where I'll be when you try to see The love we had back when You fucked over me So I will not be seeing you The way that shit went down's a shame It's true I never thought that we Could be estranged from what we knew Turns out I didn't know A thing about you
8.
Treadmill 02:23
I walk through Sylvan Lake at night I gawk through the window at the TV light Dripping off the wall of an old friend's parents' bedroom Slipping down the hall from an old friend's parents' bedroom Down the flight of stairs where we once lifted a treadmill Up the flight of stairs back when parents still bought treadmills And assembled it inside that old friend's parents' bedroom Trembling with pride of possessions turned to heirlooms Where the TV light now sifts outs to the dark street The frigid TV light drifts down onto my dark feet That creep along the lake Just like Halloween is broken A car alarm's awake And a sleeping car's been woken Across Sylvan Lake Where I stand in front of this Large estate where I once had my first kiss The babysitter lied The lips had all been flavored The patriarch had died My synapses all wavered In the autumn night
9.
I'm the slush gush martyr Of Keego Harbor I'm the parter of the frozen Sylvan Lake water And I'm in love with this crooked optometrist's daughter And I don't know when I am anymore I'm the cameraman For the abandoned township meeting Recording how your summer tan Dissolved to snowy sheeting Constantly awaking in the sneering bed of exes We've repositioned Michigan Now we're nearing the nexus Still I don't know when I am anymore And I am eagerly awaiting Your next installment And what dreaming of a "Cheers" reunion In my old dormitory basement hall meant But I don't when I am anymore
10.
The television is a date-stamping machine It's playing a movie I saw with my dad When I was fifteen Some winter break When every lake was frozen clean A dirty snow bank, a worried low tank Of gasoline The television is filling up with snow And the dense contents of every night I ever did know Down Livernois at the Big Boy I let it go But late at night the reruns bite of the 90s sitcom show At the library you were a date-stamping machine You'd stamp my hand when I'd come and stand Against your desk and lean In so sweetly, not discreetly nor obscene Aw, my little date-stamping machine
11.
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about

available on cassette via Palm Tapes

this is a mixtape of bedroom recordings, lo-fi song orphans, & sound collages I didn't know what else to do with—ranging from 2010-2015.

all songs by Matthew Milia © 2015

cover art & photo by Matthew Milia

(photo of Matthew Milia by David Jones)

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released December 17, 2015

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Matthew Milia Detroit, Michigan

Matthew Milia is a critically acclaimed songwriter, best known as the lead singer and guitarist for Frontier Ruckus. Celebrated for his obsession for memory, domestic minutiae, suburban redundancy, and the fragility of family dynamics, Milia has written over 100 songs constructing an intricate personal mythology based in his lifelong home of Detroit, Michigan. ... more

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