Language Or The Kiss

(album: Swamp Ophelia - 1994)

I don't know if it was real or in a dream lately waking up i'm not sure where i've been there was a table set for six and five were there i stood outside and kept my eyes upon that empty chair and there was steam on the windows from the kitchen laughter like a language i once spoke with ease but i'm made mute by the virtue of decision i choose most of your life goes on without me oh the fear i've known that i might reap the praise of strangers and end up on my own all i've sown was a song but maybe i was wrong i said to you the one gift which i'd adore unwrap a package of the next 10 years unfolding but you told me if i had my way i'd be bored right then i knew i loved you best born of your scolding when we last talked we were lying on our backs looking up at the sky through the ceiling i used to lie like that alone out on the driveway trying to read the greek upon the stars the alphabet of feeling oh i knew back then it was a calling that said if joy then pain the sound of the voice these years later is
still the same i am alone in a hotel room tonight i squeeze the sky out but there's not a star appears begin my studies with this paper and this pencil and i'm working through the grammar of my fears mercy what i won't give to have the things that mean the most not to mean the things i miss unforgiving the choice still is the language or the kiss