No Closer to Heaven

I’m digging up the bones of the failures I’ve buried
I’m pulling out my white flags in varying stages
Of sunbleached and gray
Gonna sew them all together
Gonna fashion their bones into a frame
Tie the flags on a string
Stretched across until they’re wings
I’m no closer to heaven
I clipped a bird with my car on the freeway
He won’t see a burial
And all week long I kept thinking of death
How me and Hemingway share forehead scars
I won’t meet the same fate that he did
In a world that I can’t fix
With a hammer in my grip
I’m no closer to heaven
It feels like the day before something important
It feels like the first snow of the season that sticks
It’s how I’ll always feel like a failure
In the back of my head
No matter where I’ve been
The future feels bright
The glow of the city
Out across the great plains
With the closer I get
The further I feel away
I can stay here in the darkness
Feels like I’m wandering in circles for days
I may never reach the gates
I’ll keep walking anyway
I’m no closer to heaven