1988

There are four whole people in this house

And I'm the last one awake again

And tomorrow we'll be biting nails

And biting tongues to higher stakes again

I am thinking if I just don't sleep

The morning won't sneak up on me

As just another yesterday again

But I was brilliant for just one day

In 1988

I didn't have to talk, I didn't have to think

They flushed my sins right down a sink

Ten fingers and ten toes, and you're okay

Yeah I think that's what they say

Well how about today?

I think the world has got my number

Oh my God, there's digits in my eyes

I think that I've been dancing 'round

The brightest rooms in a cellophane disguise

Everybody still remembers

Things that I said last September

Oh, but worst of all, so do I

But I was a stranger for just one day

Born with the cleanest slate

My mother loved me before she knew me

Gave me a name that didn't suit me

But hey that's okay

I've kept it anyway

What if I threw it away?

And to me God's just a metaphor

A metaphor for everything that's strange

I take his name in vain a lot

But I'm not sure just what that means these days

Sometimes I wish that I were still religious

Along with a lot of other wishes

But I don't think that God would know my name

But I was forgiven for just one day

When I still knew how to pray

And all the words were etched in gold

On the little Bible that I stole

From my teacher in second grade

The one I didn't mean to take

Oh what would Jesus say?

And things were perfect for a time

In 1999

I was eleven years old, and we drove south

Yeah, down to my grandfather's house

And everything was fine

It was right before he died

We were all so goddamn fine

We were all so goddamn fine