>>intro
welcome. get comfortable. have some popcorn and candy. these premiums are for you.

we know honest faces—honest by our definition. you have our hospitality, you owe us your attention. we own satellites and livestreams and seas of human capital. we dreamed the dream first and determine potential from the terminally doubtful, the useful from the questioning, the firm from quick to flee. and you're still here. so listen carefully.

we've all heard the cries for the truth in advertising. this is the truth in audiences. the dead can only be sold three to five days before morbidity sets in and they're too sad to consume. but the missing are a boon never ceasing cycling—the dead may turnover and constantly replenish, but the lost revive, and the ratings soar. our terms are generous and heartstring strumming gentle but seamless placed politics will cost you more. we can negotiate the way to direct this; our resources are endless, but demands are sure:

we don't want tearful mothers, we want trembling fathers.
we don't want more battered shelters, we want letters to the editors.
under no circumstances are cell phones ever dangerous, and the mall is always safe.
lastly, if it's found, so be it, do what you will.
but until that time—the body belongs to us.

>>what to wear when last seen
If you grew up in the early eighties, you know a stranger could snatch you from your mother's arms and cut her heart to pieces. When you were three, she brought you and your brothers to the mall. Smiling adults took your picture and weighed and measured and fingerprinted you. They put you in a computer and gave your mom a file. While growing up sometimes you looked at the file, filled with your statistics and vitals. It showed an outline of a child like an inside-out shadow branded here and there with a black magic marker.

This is you, and these are your scars.

A boy a few steps ahead of me turns and glances back. Eyes intently. Moves forward. Though I've never seen him before, I swear he looks familiar. Staring at me. Turning back. Staring again oh my god I suddenly think it's that dead kid—it's Chris Jenkins, missing since Halloween. Though I've never met him, I've seen him a thousand times, a photocopied grinning kid missing all over on lampposts and bulletin boards, in bus stop shelters, get your disappeared, you could be next.

After the initial panic, his search force came up with "Someone Knows"—signs printed with just those words someone knows an information ad campaign, like they were selling insecurity or a past life. Would you deny the face of a missing kid in your storefront, your restaurant, would you turn away hope, would you tell his friends and family I want to help, truly, but that poster's an obituary—I'm tired of looking at the photograph of a dead kid I've never met?

What will you wear when you are last seen? Fear. Hysteria. Smug. Skin.
Innocence. Defiance. Everyday normality. Terror. Teeth. Determination to never stop—

staring at me, turning back, staring again. He lacks the tensed expression of one who recognizes. This person doesn't know me, he just looks and looks like he wants to tell me something, a secret someone knows a tired expression it's warming up and river freeze is thawing to ask me a question where am I? where were you the night I stopped breathing? then I lose the missing kid around a corner.

A few hours later, Chris Jenkins was pulled from the Mississippi.

You've never met a river that didn't hide a body. You will not forget the faces burned into your memory. You cannot remove what you will wear last seen. When you ready yourself to enter the world where unknown kids disappear and their absence is the presence that haunts your mind—twenty-one and twenty-two until the end of time—you look in the mirror and tell yourself: I wear my scars tonight.

>>22
another gone, your story known's another tragedy
another number stopping, another memory not our own
we keep reliving, we keep repeating, we keep projecting you
hiding in our fields and abandoned buildings
in our fears and frozen rivers
in our hearts and prayers after these sponsors
you're in our thoughts and homes coming to us live

but only in our dreams, dragging body bags filled
with our eyes and the weight they bring
any other missing we would ship straight to heaven
but nothing gets attention like the missing of perfection
from our lives
another program to contain and remind us
we are murderers and searchers of the never known
while our neighbors are sleeping under covers undercover
panicked by the breathing behind the door
this is happening. this is happening. this is happening
you, yes, them, yes, us, now

another winning smile lost, another late celebrity
too late for the flash, too soon for anonymity
or just another notice middle-sectioned lost to
the things we want. the things we need, tell us, please
no, our hands reach out to pull you from the TV
America is watching every movement you're not making
for the moment enthralled though we know the lost will leave us
without closure or the hope for another new season

but it's another thirsty ghost for the closer to home
another primetime cautioning with national backing
"your children will be children till you breathe no more"
we're all eventually orphans in this system of outliving
but victim is reserved for those we can't start believing
this happened to. this can happen, too
you, yes, them, yes, us, now
without or with determining news from what's new
and we will find you. we will find you
or lose ourselves in the guilt of forget about

another disappeared born lost unseen
another shrug and had it coming, nothing to be done or doing
these things happen, and we ache for them all
but we have found our queen of the missing
we have found our queen
(all hail, all hell)
only in my dreams. dragging body bags filled
with our hopes and the hurt they bring
i'm sorry this attention won't send you to heaven
but nothing is so perfect as the absence of perfection

and we will find you
we will find you
someone knows

>>is life
the head holds heavy what the heart can't carry
or kill, equipped to reason, let go—the uncorrectable
the unforgiveable there's no gift or patience for
the unforgettable, to tuck sleep tight
but it hurts
the thrumming in my ears the silence after sirens stop
the aftershock inside eyelids a color i could never mix
describe outside gasoline urgency fading
i try and i fail and i … what was i thinking
who am i kidding, i know i will never be through
when warning signs are the only signs I see (I show)
i know the thieves of making needful will find me
and my finger on the pulse won't do

but fiction isn't fake, it just hasn't happened yet

our stories aren't about us the moment they're told
kept safe from harm but not convolution
are you ready for a stranger's uninterpretation
15 minute reel-to-reel to realtime delusion
in the 30 second sounds biting at the tension outrage telling
terrible, terrible, the way the words flay
timing every takedown, violent then apologizing
take care—now take cover
behind mirrors designed without design
now the fallout seeking shelter
in the therebefore before hereafter "life imitates art"
a panacea, brought to you by no responsibility
and you should be ashamed for being affected
i should be censured for trying to change what i see, but no
life imitates life
what else could it pretend to be
get away with meaningfully, believably
believe me, the hands of art are empty

if i didn't love life, i'd fucking hate everything

>>intro reprise
we offer no solutions
just big returns with no returns
we offer no alternatives
we know what they need
we offer no apologizes
just fine print, just sign the line
we offer no eternities
other than forever young






























all words written and righted by meg holle.
see pictures of the performance here.
visit fakeproject for more info about dan and the music.
return to deepsicks.