"little plastic castle"

- and they say, "goldfish have no memory" - i guess their lives are much like mine, and the little plastic castle is a surprise every time. and it's hard to say, if they're happy - but they don't seem much to mind.

- from the shape of your shaved head, i recognized your silhouette as you walked out of the sun and sat down. and the sight of your sleepy smile eclipsed all the other people...

"fuel"

- and stumble around for another dumb numb week, for another hum drum hit song to appear.

- how does it make you feel? you tell me what's real...

- and they say that alcoholics are always alcoholics, even when they're as dry as my lips for years, even when they're stranded on a small desert island with no place in two thousand miles to buy beer. and i wonder is he different, is he different, has he changed? what he's about, or is he just a liar with nothing to lie about? am i headed for the same brick wall? is there anything i can do about anything at all? ...except go back to that corner in manhattan, and dig deeper, dig deeper this time.

"gravel"

- all i need is my leather, one t-shirt, and two socks. i'll keep my hands warm in your pockets and use the engine block, and we'll ride out to california with my arms around your chest, and i'll pretend that this is real, 'cause this is what i like best.

"two little girls"

- love is a piano dropped out a four-story window.

"deep dish"

- cold and drizzly night in chicago's deep dish, fluorescent light of the bathroom shows my hands as they are. see an eyelash on my cheek, pick it off and make a wish, and walk back out into the bar. wind at the windows, neon lights, the patterned panes. the waitress wields the weight of her tray around her palm, the doorman cups his hands and lights his cigarette again. and the rain marches on.

- there was always the possibility of something becoming what it is.

- i walk up to the bar and point at the top shelf, then i throw my head back and laugh at myself. i raise a toast to all our saviors each so badly behaved -- it's too bad that their world is the one that they saved.

- there's a spider spinning cobwebs from your elbow to the table, while my eyes ride the crowd in a secret rodeo. i smile with my mouth, lift my watch up to the light, and say, "oh, look, i have to go"...

"loom"

- each time we've spoke, put in our tokens, ridden the tilt-a-whirl, and i was giggling and dizzy {flirting like a 12 year old girl}. the carnival of you and me was coming to town: watch how we spin and spin, and then fall down.

- you are the one-way glass that watches me standing in line at the bank. i always looks into your glasses like a cat looks into a fish tank, but all i could ever see was the specter of me reflected. i wanted a monument of a friendship that we never had erected... i wanted to take up lots of room... i wanted to loom...

"pixie"

- and all the little fishes are flapping wildly on their hooks, while all the top critics find great meaning in the telephone book. and the little emperor, he has no clothes, so he can't come out to play {and besides which life is suffering, and he likes it that way}. and the little guy is not so friendly, but you know life has been cruel -- so wipe that smile off your face, baby, and try to be cool. maybe you don't like your job, maybe you didn't get enough sleep. well, nobody likes their job... nobody got enough sleep.

"swan dive"

- i'm cradling the softest, warmest part of you in my hands -- feels like a little baby bird, fallen from the nest. i think that your body is something i understand, i think that i'm happy, i think that i'm blessed. but i've had a lack of inhibition, i've had a loss of perspective -- i've had a little bit to drink and it's making me think, that i can jump ship and swim that the ocean will hold me... that there's got to be more than this boat i'm in.

- and they can call me brilliant if i succeed. gravity is nothing to me, i'm moving at the speed - of sound. i'm just gonna to get my feet wet until i drown...

- i teeter between tired and really, really tired. i'm wiped and i'm wired but i guess that's just as well, cause i've built my own empire out of car tires and chicken wire. and now i'm queen of my own compost heap and i'm getting used to the smell...

- i've got the memory of your warm skin in my hands, and i've got a vision of blue sky and dry land...

- i'm cradling the hardest, heaviest part of me in my hands. the ship is pitching and heaving, our limbs are bobbing, and weaving -- i think this is something i understand.

- 'cause a little bird told me that jumping is easy, that falling is fun -- right up until you hit the sidewalk, shivering stunned...

"glass house"

- and outside the glass, the whole world is magnified, and it's half an inch from here to the other side...

- but before you throw those stones at me - tell me, what's your house made of?

- {yeah, but for the purpose of this song, let's just say i'm doing fine... i guess i'm doing fine}.

"independence day"

- we drove the car to the top of the parking ramp on the 4th of july. we sat out on the hood with a couple of warm beers and watched the fireworks explode in the sky. and there was an exodus of birds from the trees, but they didn't know we were only pretending, and the people all looked up, and were pleased - and the birds flew around like the whole world was ending. and i don't think war is noble, and i don't like to think that love is like war... and i gotta big hot cherry bomb, and i want to slip it through the mail slot of your front door.

- so many sheep i quit counting, sleepless and embarrassed about the way that i feel - trying to make mole hills out of mountains, building base camp at the bottom of a really big deal. {and did i tell you how i stopped eating? when you stopped calling me. and i was cramped up shitting rivers for weeks, and pretending that i was finally free.}

- we drove the car to the top of the parking ramp, on the 4th of july. and i planted my dusty boots on the bumper and sat out on the hood, and looked up at the sky...

"pulse"

- you crawled into my bed like some sort of giant insect, and i found myself spellbound that night at the sight of you there - beautiful and grotesque and all the rest of that bug stuff, bluffing your way into my mouth {behind my teeth, reaching for my scars}. that night we got kicked out of two bars, and laughed our way home.

- that night you leaned over and threw up into your hair, and i held you there thinking i would offer you my pulse if i thought it would be useful - i would give you my breath, except the problem with death is that you have some hundred years and then they can build buildings on your only bones... 100 years and then your grave is not your own. we lie in our beds and our graves, unable to save ourselves from the quaint tragedies we invent, and then undo from the stupid circumstances we slomen through.

- and i realized that night that the hall light {which seemed so bright when you turned it on} is nothing compared to the dawn - which is nothing, compared to the light - which seeps from me while you're sleeping beautiful, and grotesque, resting cocooned in my room. that night we got kicked out of two bars, and laughed our way home, and i held you there thinking i would offer you my pulse - i would give you my breath - i would offer you my pulse...