You're Trailing Yourself - Kevin Devine

The sputter and blink of the streetlamp

Makes you taller, then shrinks you, then splits you in half

So you’re trailing yourself on the walk to the payphone

Your pockets weighted down with quarters

And the hope that no one’s home

You spray paint cinnamon on vines

And key the cars you pass by

Your ears burn and your voice don’t sound right

So you spend the next week playing weekend

Rolling three-man alone in the dark in your kitchen

Your apartment can’t talk, so it’s safe for your secrets

All the stories you’ve invested with a masochist’s

menace and meaning

Those tired tricks that you play

To graft a life to your name

And you know it’s not yours, but for now it’s okay

You wake and cut your initials in cheap glass

To mark a space for yourself when your time here has passed

And you’re drifted and done, trading danger for distance

And all those rocks that rope your neck are finally nameless

and weightless and faceless

You’ll strip the sting from those stains that bleed the life

from your face

And your cheeks’ll burn red on that pure, perfect day