They'll Kill You

Resolution for new year 2012

You would save till you made the carousel

And you'd be dumping all you hoarded 'cause they

Didn't mean more than a bunch of props on stage

You might even find some new ones after

Jetting off to Stockholm via Adelaide

Where you'd rearrange your past

To merge with each new twist that came

You'd touch down, then you'd shut down

Then leave before you'd stayed

Soothed only by a hope that the world

Wouldn't cope without you long

But all plans are just on hold I'm told

Until your afterglow is gone

Everybody shunts out front and waits there on the street

Like some postscript might ensure the whole thing don't repeat

Give me back my upper hand

Give me back my second chance

Give me back my evil streak

Then guarantee it stays with me

Everything you did just kept you buoyed

And everywhere you wandered was a substitute, a decoy

Overdressed, overdrawn

Volunteering last night's footprint on your face

You knew you were trespassing 'cause you lied about your age

To anybody that would hear you out

While all your smoke screens leaned from range and drained their way south

This birdhouse migrates too

And I don't think you'll ever find your way out of it now

Was running away more a punishment

Than being hitched to the cart?

Was it you that cracked my front door oh so softly in the dark?

I've been sleeping most nights

Stone cold like the shoal that you hit and sunk

But you were here, signed and sealed

Just as real as any air left in your lungs

But you weren't fooling anyone, though some might say

Your trail's as hard to read as any snake's

I knew you last and least on Earth

But no one outsmarts fate by making all that she made worse