Knuckle Down lyrics

you cried and you cried and you cried wolf
so it took me a minute to understand
that you really were hurt bad
that day you deeply cut your hand
and then that look that you gave me
sent me rushing through guilt's door
i'd already started to feel callous
like i really should care more

it was my work that kept me upright
so you called it a crutch
while i drifted off
into dreams of such and such

that's just my cowgirl alter-ego
riding on her bar room bull
dripping with the sweat of irony
as the cowboys whoop and drool
shooting glances at the mirror
to see if her scar is showing
she is truly going nowhere tonight

lecherous old lady wanna-be
much too young and shy
flailing her whole life
just thinking she can teach herself to fly
vehement romantic
frantic for forever right now

there's really no hope for me
and that three second rule
somethin gets dropped
and still i'm the slowest damn fool
slow to realize what's really going on
slow to know in a moment
who or what has gone wrong

i wanna tighten down on the lag time

your consonants were buzzing
around your head like flies
your true colors were showing
and your shape and your size
you were drinking your way though it

i'm holding here a book
notable, but not the greatest
stolen for me by the latest
in a long line of thieves
and i'm just about to drop it
down that manhole of memories
when i realize it doesn't bother me
like love's mementos usually do
and i look up to see who's different here
the latest me or the latest you

course, you're the kind of guy who doesn't lie
he just doctors everything

you wandered in
to the forest
following that shiny red ball
and by the time you looked up
you were lost
but that's not all

you confused your journey
with my journey
you tried to nail me
like minerva to your bow
but my job here
is not to deliver you
but to hold a mirror
till you see how

oh say can you see me
oh say can you see me
oh say can you see me over here?

you want me
to tell you a story

in order to
say thank you to you
i must do it intentionally
but tonight with every breath
i can feel my death
sure as i can feel my knees

you were my modulation
so that's what you will always be
we took each other higher
we set each other free

course, neither of us were wearing helmets
and our blood was just everywhere
and when the morphine kicked in later

i was born to two immigrants
who knew why they were here
they were happy to pay taxes
for the schools and roads
happy to be here
they took it seriously
the second job of citizenry
my mother went campaigning door to door
and holding to her hand was me

i was just a girl in a room full of women
licking stamps and laughing
i remember the feeling of community brewing
of democracy happening

thirty-three years go by
and not once do you come home
to find a man sitting in your bedroom
that is
a man you don't know
who came a long way to deliver one very specific message:
lock your back door, you idiot
however invincible you imagine yourself to be
you are wrong

thirty-three years go by
and you loosen the momentum of teenage nightmares
your breasts hang like a woman's

Come home and my guitar
Has nothin to say to me
I recoil from all my friends
And then I'm in misery
Been so long since I've been held
Really since I was his
Probably just need to be held
That's probably all it is

Course, then I think of my dad
Who time travels mostly now
Back to when he was free
And holding out hope somehow
Who sits all day in a line
Of wheelchairs against a wall

You're my seeing eye dog and i am blind
you take me there every time
with that winning combination of loyal and kind
your eyes like wells to the water of your mind

i want to take a long, cool drink from your bucket
to every thought i could say now, i say fuck it
i just want to go with how i feel
like my only job here
is to care for and covet you, dear

i am out here studying stones
trying to learn to be less alive
using all of my will
to keep very still
still even on the inside
i've cut all of the pertinent wires
so my eyes can't make that connection
i am holding my breath
i am feigning my death
when i'm looking in your direction

'course numb is an old hat
old as my oldest memories
see that one's my mother
and that one's my father

sunday morning
slow beats seething
through the screens in
the open windows
eggs frying
legs shaking
after we stayed lying
so long in bed
sunday morning
both of us reading
and looking up occasionally
looking up occasionally

sunday morning
you're doing your thing
and i am doing mine
speaking words
more a formality
cuz we can feel we
are of one mind
sunday morning
sheets still warm
kitties swarming