For Mayor in Splitsville
Funny what you think of after a collapse
While lying in the dirt
The first thing that comes back
Is never quite what you’d have guessed
And if you could have
You probably would’ve said you’d check
If all your limbs were intact
Still and then try to get out
We played house with the
Neighbors in their basement
Sister made me husband
She was older so I did her bidding
I remember once their dad came in
And said, “You think this is bad?
You don’t know the half”
And he laughed
It’s funny what things come back
The first things you see
How he sort of smiled
Like it’s only a joke, but he was lying
There was something else inside of his eyes
All those secrets people tell to little children
Are warnings that they give them
Like, “Look, I’m unhappy
Please don’t make the same mistake as me”
Why are those old worn out jokes
On married life told at toasts
At receptions still?
How does it never occur
How often couples get burned
And end uncertain in Splitsville?
Funny what you think of in the wreckage
Lying there in the dirt and the dust and the glass
How you’re suddenly somewhere
In the desert, in the night time
And it’s gettin’ close to Christmas
And then her and that movie voice she uses when she reads
“Welcome to the Land of Enchantment” from a highway sign
And it’s late so you take the next exit
When that trip ended, we came back
The rent was due, I was jobless
I guess in retrospect, I should’ve sensed decay
Then that day, how you said
“I just don’t know” and I promised
We’d rearrange things
Ro fix the mess I’d made here
But I guess in the end
We just moved furniture around
But I guess in the end
We just moved furniture around
But I guess in the end
We just moved furniture around
But I guess in the end
It sort of feels like every day it’s harder
To stay happy where you are
There are all these ways to look through the fence
Into your neighbor’s yard
Why even risk it?
It’s safer to stay distant
When it’s so hard now to just be content
Because there’s always something else