At Home With The Animals

(album: Romeo & Juliet - 2022)

While you were reading the black bible in the sun
I was half drunk out the window of a moving city bus
Wilder than the devil, like a tiger in the brush
Louder than an atom bomb that only you could hush
Spinning like the Earth and Moon, but never really touched
Alone, the ways I wanted to be loved
You were not enough

While your head was bowed and hands praying to God
I was swinging from the chandeliers like some endangered animal
Somewhere in New Orleans on the run
Like I just won the lottery, with God-knows-what inside of me
Hair a mess and shoelaces undone
Of all the ways I wanted you
You were not the one

While they were teaching you how Moses split the sea
I was in an airplane bathroom doing speedballs off the sink
High as any angel moving at the speed of sound
Someplace over Germany, moving through the clouds
Winking back at stewardesses, supplying me with ale
Big-hooped golden earrings staying at the same hotel
Of all the ways I wanted you to hold me
I could not be held

While you were waiting for the doctor in the chair
I was stoned riding the cyclone at the Onslow County Fair
The stars above us sparkled like they didn't pay the bill
Smokes behind the haunted house, chugging stolen beers
Cotton candy kisses underneath the ferris wheel
Of all the ways you wanted me to feel
I could never heal

While you were waiting in the depot for the train
I was asleep on stolen cargo in the back of someone's plane
Halfway back from Florida from Cuba in the rain
Low enough to feel the water from the spraying waves
Underneath the radar hauling crates of pure cocaine
Hung over and laughing high above The Everglades
Of all the ways I wanted to be tamed
I was just insane

While you were waiting in the lobby for your man
I was working at the circus as a garbage man
Remembering that winter you were in a long black coat
I'm at home with the animals, knife at my own throat
You hear the bells of freedom, but the chains all just say "nope"
If I was the Titanic, you were pink clouds and blue smoke
Rising over Hemingway and in an old man's fishing boat
Of all the things I wanted you to be
Of all the things I wish that you were now
You were not around

You were not around