Poison Oak

(album: I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning - 2005)

Poison oak, some boyhood bravery
When a telephone was a tin can on a string
And I fell asleep with you still talking to me
You said you weren't afraid to die

In polaroids you were dressed in women's clothes
Were you made ashamed, why'd you lock them in a drawer?
I don't think that I ever loved you more

Then when you turned away
When you slammed the door
When you stole the car
And drove towards Mexico
And you wrote bad checks
Just to fill your arm
I was young enough, I still believed in war

Well, let the poets cry themselves to sleep
And all their tearful words will turn back into steam

But me I'm a single cell
On a serpents tongue
There's a muddy field where a garden was
And I'm glad you got away
But I'm still stuck out here
My clothes are soaking wet
From your brother's tears

And I never thought this life was possible
You're the yellow bird that I've been waiting for

The end of paralysis
I was a statuette
Now I'm drunk as hell on a piano bench
And when I press the keys
It all gets reversed
The sound of loneliness makes me happier