I Am Disappeared

(album: England Keep My Bones - 2011)

I keep having dreams
Of pioneers and pirate ships and Bob Dylan
Of people wrapped up tight in the things that will kill them
Of being trapped in a lift plunging straight to the bottom
Of open seas and ways of life we've forgotten
I keep having dreams

Amy worked in a bar in Exeter
I went back to her house and I slept beside her
She woke up screaming in the middle of the night
Terrified of her own insides
Dreams of pirate ships and Patty Hearst
Breaking through a life over-rehearsed
She can't remember which came first
The house, the home, or the terrible thirst
She keeps having dreams

And on the worst days
When it feels like life weighs ten thousand tons
She's got her cowboy boots and car keys on the bedstand
So she can always run
She can get up, shower, and in half an hour she'll be gone

I keep having dreams of things I need to do
And waking up but not following through
But it feels like I haven't slept at all
When I wake to a silence and she's facing the wall
Posters of Dylan and of Hemingway
An antique compass for a sailor's escape
She says you just can't live this way
And I close my eyes and I never say
I'm still having dreams

And on the worst days
When it feels like life weighs ten thousand tons
I sleep with my passport
One eye on the back door
So I can always run
I can get up, shower, and in half an hour I'll be gone

And come morning
I am disappeared
Just an imprint on the bedsheets
I'm by the roadside with my thumb out
A car pulls up, and Bob's driving
So I climb in
We don't say a word
As we pull off into the sunrise
And these rivers of tarmac are like arteries across the country
We are blood cells alive in the bloodstream
The beating heart of the country
We are electric pulses
In the pathways of the sleeping soul of the country
We are electric pulses
In the pathways of the sleeping soul of the country
We are electric pulses
The sleeping soul of the country
The sleeping soul of the country
The sleeping soul of the country