i will wipe from my cheeks all the love that you gave me
but the ink from your letters will stain my face
and i leave all the words that i know will not save me
and those that remain will be my only saving grace.

and i'll fight through the rain and the floods of self-interest
clutching close your postcards and your darkest days
and i'll leave them on the curb for the morning to take them
i think that i'll appreciate the honesty of waste

i'll dry off the keys and i'll fire up the engine
and drive to the nearest place i once knew you
i'll look to the typewriters thrown to the water
how much indecision will they never come to know?

their fragile voices say, "LOOK DEEP INTO THE EYES THAT READ YOU."
in that most brief of moments, your heart will be stripped bare
all that you will know is love of life and no devotion
and death will rid the earth of worship and despair

i'll wake up late, stinking of fire
filthy with memory and dried up desire
because i stayed up all night, burning a bridge
with a match that i've been holding for so long

i'll run as the paint of the world runs before me
lifting all the lines between the blessed and the damned
the canvas underneath is like a dream after a nightmare
the comfort of the wool after the horn of the ram

read every line of every poem and every novel
die to all the music, and shave off all your hair
walk every step of every road in every country
you'll never find yourself if you keep looking there.

we'll walk from our lives in a blaze of translation
and sweep away each footprint that we ever left behind
and i'll wait by the pond for the evening to take me
and i won't look back
and a smile will crack...

i'll wake up late, stinking of fire
filthy with memory and dried up desire
because i stayed up all night, burning a bridge
with a match that i've been holding for so long
x2

and just because i'm happy
doesn't make it wrong