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