Somewhere back there we used to share a stage
And your Ibanez would rain down fire
With a deep vibrato moan
Haunting every alley to its boyish bones
We’d shoot tequila and punch each others’ arms
And wait for Slim’s stairwell to fill
Bloodshot believers down
To hear us decimate this stranger-speckled town

Didn’t we just howl down each horizon
Weren’t we just fit to burn
Scuffed up, shining like a knife fight
Screaming hard into the hot mikes
Fearless, streaking down the straightaway
With a lifetime left to learn

One night we almost caught a spark of something
On the cusp of a five a.m. blue
Maybe just a hopeful shadow
Moving undetected between me and you
But I was always a sucker for the soft lights
There was a cut rate wisdom I could never see
Succumbing to a flash of teeth, some raven eyes
Some promise that could never come to be

Trying to just howl down each horizon
Weren’t we just fit to burn?
Scuffed up, shining like a knife fight
Leaning hard into the late nights
Fearless, streaking down the straightaway
With a lifetime left to learn

Now I trawl deserted intersections
Beneath the yellow stoplight’s sway
Over a city hard with sleep
Your voice breathes between the tree lines
Unheeded and fading away

Tonight the sky looks like one we used to call each others’
Spilling pails of color across the dawn
You let it ride on a handful of gestures
Or you nourish certain certainties for way too long
Should we meet, wind-blown, sand-blasted
With a couple fresh napkins to scribble on
Madrigals of love and war
But who are we gonna play them for
Those kids are ghosted, gone
Gone with the boyish bones in the alley
Gone with the hopeful shadows
Gone with your voice between the tree lines

Couldn’t we just howl down each horizon
Like we were fit to burn
Scuffed up, shining like a knife fight
Breaking down between the footlights
Fearless, streaking down the straightaway
With a lifetime left to learn?