John K. Samson
This Is a Fire Door, Never Leave Open
[Verse 1]
Headlights race towards the corner of the dining room
And half illuminate a face before they disappear
You breathe in forty years of failing to describe a feeling
I breathe out smoke against a window
Trace the letters in your name
[Pre-Chorus]
Our letters sound the same
Full of all our changing
That isn't change at all
All straight lines circle sometime
[Verse 2]
You said, "Somewhere, there's a box full of replacement parts
To all the tenderness we've broken or let rust away."
Somewhere, sympathy is more than just a way of leaving
Somewhere, someone says, "I'm sorry."
Someone's making plans to stay
[Pre-Chorus]
So tell me it's okay
Tell me anything
Or show me there's a pull
Unassailable
[Chorus]
That will lead you there from the dark alone
To benevolence that you've never known
Or you knew when you were four and can't remember
Where a small knife tears out those sloppy seams
And the silence knows what your silence means
And your metaphors, as mixed as you can make them
Are linked like days, together
[Pre-Chorus]
I still hear trains at night when the wind is right
I remember everything
Lick and thread this string
[Chorus]
That will never mend you or tailor more
Than a memory of a kitchen floor
Or the fire door that we kept propping open
And I love this place: the enormous sky
And the faces, hands that I'm haunted by
So why can't I forgive these buildings
These frameworks labeled home?
[Outro]
Headlights race towards the corner of the dining room
And half illuminate a face before they disappear