It's snow I think of
when I call you to mind
Clean, white drifts
and you behind glass, staring out;
Christina in her farm house
only it's me, still out there in the fields
staring back at your world
of clean, pressed pyjamas
and regular sleeping patterns.
It's those things that separate us
rather than some difference of opinion
over the latest releases
Believe, me, I've tried to rise with the sun
and straighten my hair
tried paying my library fines
and learning the names of the constellations
but it isn't in me anymore
I lost it around the time I first discovered
the way the sun breaks through curtains
at particular times
started calculating delicate rhythms
whilst sat at cluttered tables
and in the backseats of cars
when I first saw lights in everything
your pure worlds are beyond me, now
I know that's a big thing to be saying
but you have to understand
there are things you can't launder away
which aren't removed in washing the sheets
which I wouldn't leave behind
you could see that, if you'd like
there is a kind of glamour to it
and certainly, it's a good feeling while it lasts
I could show you, but I should warn you
it's not really something you can reverse
so you have to be sure
although certainty's one of those things
you'll have to forsake, I'm afraid
around about the time you let your hair knot
and forget what it was like to get up for school every morning;
when you start to count minutes again
and worry at the little bruises you don't remember
when you start singing in the streets
and lying in the grasses when it rains
just to see if you prefer it to your own bed
when you get used to the noise in your own head
I'll show you
how there's a sort of purity here, too
in the dropped beats and the silences
in tears down the phone and songs you'll never listen to again
in every tangled hair and every mangled word
in every drift of snow