Album: Familiars (2014)

Revisted

When some unfamiliar faces came to shop in our old house,
I didn't bother trying to stop them until they emptied it out.
I was standing by the front door, stuffing cash in a jar, taking payment for our failures…
…I only wanted to alarm you.

So when they asked me for directions, I sold them our map.
I sold our shovels and our flashlights,
they took our duffel bag with a ton of room, but a broken strap.
The hungry patrons hit the graveyard, I lit a joint in the house,
where there was nothing but our mattress and the same soft shelter of sheets,
where nobody found us…

I let them strip your mausoleum so nothing was left,
but they forgot to close the casket…
They sent you shivering to my doorstep.
Gently clawing at my window when I was less than awake,
I slid it up for you to slither through.
I heard you howling,

"Just take me!
Just take me to the rusty city we perfected,
that holy summer we first found!”

The place you're stubbornly protecting is the only pretty thing that we own now,
and we can stay here to wither in your garden of eden,
but your fantasy's a prison and you're serving a sentence you can't stop repeating.

Can you see the secret exit? The false wall in obsession?
You'll only fit through the doorway when you relinquish your possessions.

So leave everything you've stolen that you can't give back,
and don't replace what you've been missing until you know what you're lacking.
Leave everything you've borrowed and kept for yourself.

You can't unbreak our broken leases holding on to broken pieces, so return them!
No guilt, no sorry speeches.