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