Tell Tale Signs

(album: The Third Three Years - 2014)

God dammit Amy, we're not kids any more.
You can't just keep waltzing out of my life,
Leaving clothes on my bedroom floor,
Like nothing really matters, like pain doesn't hurt.
You should be more to me by now than just heartbreak in a short skirt.

You kind of remind me of scars on my arms that I made when I was a kid,
With a disassembled disposable razor I stole from my dad,
When I thought that suffering was something profound,
That weighed down on wise heads,
And not just something to be avoided,
Something normal people dread.

God dammit Amy, well of course I've changed.
With all the things I've done and the places I've been
I'd be a machine if I had stayed the same.
But you're still back where we started, you haven't changed at all.
You're still trying to live like a kid, like you can always have it all.

You know you kind of remind me of scars on my arms that I hid as best I could,
That I covered with ink, but in the right kind of light they still bleed through,
Showing that there are some things I just can't change no matter what I do:
The tell-tale signs of being used,
Of being trapped inside of you.

You're a beautiful butterfly
Burned with a branding iron
Onto my outsides into my insides
As a simple sign:
To show off your ownership.
Burned into my naked skin,
Onto my outsides into my insides.

It's not even love any more,
It's just a claim upon my soul.
It stains my skin, yeah it's on my breath,
And I'm ashamed to get undressed
In front of strangers in case they see
The tell tale signs that you have left all over me.

God dammit Amy.
You'll always remind me of scars on my arms that I know will never fade.
And it's not like it's something I think about each and every day
I just occasionally catch myself scratching them, as if they'd ever go away.
But these tell tale signs are here to stay, and in the end you know that's OK.
You will always be a part of my patched-up patchwork taped-up tape-deck heart.