It’s one of the last few places where the West is still wild.
I’ve seen it turn grown men back into little childs.
First you go down in the earth about three quarters of a mile.
Quicksand in the crag, it’s the earth’s belly’s bile.

1. I can’t figure out the theme of this theme park
Or tell the difference between fossils and machine parts.
If you find my bones in an archaeological dig
Do your best to get me to a hospital quick.
Dozing off waiting for a break in the action.
I fear nothing except for abstraction.
I go on the offensive when I feel defenseless.
When the last wire-cutters break, there will still be fences.
I posed for this photograph filled with the sense
That anyone who saw it would discern my dissent.
Dusk in the desert, all the orange goes blue
And very few survival strategies you’ve read hold true.
If we start cold-calling locals right now
We might find a warm bed before the night bites down.
Picture us disappearing in a fissure in the ground.
Inside of Spooky Gulch I feel it twisting us around.

Chorus: Thirty feet deep and half a mile long.
(Down where no daylight eye can sight you)
Too narrow to glimpse what lies beyond.
(The pliable among you slide right through)
Take an ancient approach to a new result.
There are no straight lines in Spooky Gulch.
We are not welcome
But we don’t let that dissuade us.

2. If I don’t look at my gas gauge, it can’t hurt me.
I’ll defer to experts when my wits desert me.
I’m swallowing desire in a roadside diner.
It’ll smolder for years like a coal mine fire.
Got a thing for the typical but try to disguise it.
I’d chase my own tail if I thought I’d recognize it.
Avoid decoys, fishy mating calls, salt licks.
I beat a dead horse ’cause I find it cathartic.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel uninformed.
Searching for kindling in the middle of a thunderstorm.
My mother never warned me there’d be days like this
But I can sleepwalk halfway through a crisis.
Downpours turning red dust to black mud.
We flee before the approach of the flash flood.
Envision us emerging from a crack in the Earth’s crust
Almost as if Spooky Gulch just birthed us.

Chorus

3. Squeeze between the walls, single-file line.
You name your disease, I don’t feel the need to title mine.
Quick moves leave you broken in two
But look around and see what slow erosion can do.
You only see the sky overhead as a crooked strip.
How can such a tight space be such a good fit?
Always defined by what you can’t quite find.
We’re intruding in a place not meant for mankind.
Turn sideways, skinny up, push forward.
We appear most human when we look cornered.
Scraping knuckles, smearing blood on the rough rock.
Panic attacks go well with tough talk.
In the improbable case of a seismic disturbance
None of us would survive the frantic climb to the surface.
Only feel stimulated when I can’t relate.
Watch us feel at home in a crack in the landscape.

Chorus