When Heaven Takes a Day Off

In Autumn I burn the final pieces left in that shell
That ghost of a heart still lingering to haunt us all
As I drive once more down the same streets I always drive down
Knowing this time that I won't be coming back this way
Because that out there is the future
Where Polaroid half-truths make up memories
So that I don't know the reality of the past
Only my viewpoint on the matter
But I'm getting ahead of myself
Let's talk about that winter that lasted six months
The air so borderline concrete
That feeling of falling into water from a great height
The air was just like that
You had to brace yourself before you stepped outside
And the ground was almost reassuring in its solid face
I did not die that winter but I did start a new life
The frozen ground reflected this
Its painfully firm demeanor hinted at a resolution
To keep the dead buried

And that Spring was eaten by the winter
Dreadfully shadowed by mosquito henchmen
In a hotel existence of courtesy phones
I saw my breath in the garage
Either from frigid disposition
Breathing out my very soul
Or a nicotine cloud made of angry dying cells
My wrists stayed pasteurized
My angles rounded off in places
Until I was more curves than lines

The Summer introduced me to America's new favorite pastime
Filling a hole by stuffing it with other people's regrets
It was the time I decided I had to shape my own destiny
I had spent all that time on buses
Running across a great river as though chased
And arrived to find my pursuer waiting for me
Remember when we'd lay in bed Smoking like we're not supposed to
And I would outline the curves of your body
Before they became straight lines?
I've never had such an image to drink since
It was the art of growing up too fast
The state has funded this failed project
And the veins have remained solid and unspoiled
I lay in bed with your ghost beside me
And sing myself an alibi
And cradle the hope of one perfect Autumn
That no winter could spoil