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lyrics

“There’s whiskey in a mason jar and cigarettes out in the car,”
She said, “Please drive me anywhere but here.”
Through a broke and unhinged screen porch door, seemed something like a metaphor,
But for what, at first, was not quite clear.

I’d loved her back since I was ten, she’d looked through me at least since then,
But they say it’s always hope that dies the last.
So I held and kissed her head and beyond saw two feet sprawled on the bed,
In a pool of blood at first I had looked past.

And by midnight, we’d hit the I-10 pass,
Her porcelain face pressed up against the glass
“There ain’t nothing for us here,” she said to me,
“Just keep on driving, until we reach the sea.”

I asked if I could ask what happened, she looked at me with two eyes blackened,
She asked me, “Do you really need to ask?”
With windows open wide, the smell of ocean coming in her side,
Glancing over I saw her sipping from a flask.

She looked at me and sighed, then looked away out at the ebbing tide,
And pulled a strand of hair back from her face.
She said “I don’t feel joy or grief, just filled up with an odd relief,
And a wish to feel I’m at peace anyplace.”

And by three a.m., we’d hit the Georgia coast,
Passed a resurrection fern giving up the ghost.
We dug its babies to plant at our new home,
Set ‘em in the back seat, with the shovel and a stone.

We found a patch of sand out where the stars and ocean meet the land
I asked was it OK if I got drunk.
When the moon had settled down so far, she got up and walked to the car
I stumbled towards her as she opened up the trunk.

We put his body in a water tomb, she said “It will be first light soon,
We gotta get the hell out of this place.”
Drove northward through the shadows, on past miles of fields laying fallow,
And her head upon my shoulder felt like grace.

And by morning light, we’d hit the Carolina line,
Headed nowhere certain, so much as racing time.
“There ain’t nothing here for us,” she said again.
I figured out then how all of this would end.

In Myrtle Beach the sun came up, drinking coffee out of paper cups,
She smiled wry and leaned her head on me.
I held and kissed her head as the dawn turned the city skyline red,
And turned my eyes and looked out at the sea.

When the cops put us in separate cars, I stared out through the window bars,
And looked out at her looking back at me.
She smiled one more time and wiped a single tear out of her eye,
And mouthed the words, “Thank you. I feel free.”

credits

from The Roads That Make Men Weary, released November 5, 2013

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Simon Balto Indianapolis, Indiana

Alt-folk. Midwest. Big voice, full heart, can't lose.

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