You carry the beach in your way-too-short hair That you shaved off last week cause you freaked and got scared That when it's longer, you remind me of her So you offered it up with what passed for authority Some strict sort of challenge you directed straight at me You said, "Forget her, I don't care what you two were" But it's a trick on your ego A two-step off tempo A solid gold bracelet Under lights, in a window In some shopping mall where I never go You play coy and count tiles, drag your toes through the water Raise your eyes, bite your lip, and my mind's in the gutter You move at me and take my face in your hands I feel light bulbs explode in a fire-cracked thunder Sense the slow seismic shift of the sprawling cloud cover But when we're finished I feel awful again So it's the same sorry story Just the cast changes nightly And it skips like a record but it glows like a movie Or the country sky that I never see The shake in your voice makes me feel empty and ugly All scattered anger like a windstorm, howling violently And I wanna fade out and wake up somewhere else Where no face is familiar and I'm left by myself To keep plugging away on my own wasted time To eat badly and spend all my money and write To not feel too guilty to be tired at night Since I'm not fixing things here, I'll leave them behind So you make your decision I'm through making mine Now I walk where the street swallows light like it's water I see the slant of your smirk on every kid at the corner But if you called, I'd never know what to say So I just hope you never will Things are easier that way