Century Estates

Maybe she's on her lunchbreak thinking of you
Or typing words on a screen flashing black and blue
God keeps us guessing and I've been guessing hard
There's hardly a word to screw this hurt back in to the stars

I dream vacations and arguments plucked from a vine
I lost my keys in the vacuum of your worried mind
I can't move from sleeping and sleeping is the way that I move
Over the mountain, across the valley and back to you

Please report me missing to the sheriff of Century Estates
I'm not going to listen and I won't feign escape
God keeps us guessing and I've been guessing hard
Over the Mountain, Across The Valley and Back to the Stars

I don't want to breathe if I can't breathe here next to you
I am a middle-aged photographer with nothing left to shoot
I'm going to wipe away the dirt from all these dirty city blues
I'm going to try now, I'll try now not to lose

If the microphone is broken I will scream it in the street
I will love you like the woodpecker can only love the tree
I feel the wasted afternoon trying to clamp its teeth in me
I'm going to try now, I'll try now to be free

Counting backwards from thirty to one
Everything is perfect in the sun
I can't let you turn away and run
Come on now, come on, baby come on now

I see you sitting on the dock so young and so carefree
Wrapped up in some summer story water covering your feet
Inside a time when I knew you, the same as you knew me
I'm going to try now, I'll try now to believe

I've driven through every end of the state today
I cross little towns and empty fields just the same
I drop them off at the airport and make my way back home
I drive through Exeter Rhode Island all alone

The radio plays a power pop song, it keeps me company like a friend
I travel down 102 South and want to kiss your mouth again
The song goes "Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Ooh-Ah-Ooh-Ah-Oh"
I drive through Exeter, Rhode Island all alone

When I pick up the phone to call you
The line it goes all static I can't get through
It doesn't matter cause I'm on my way
I'm on my way home to see you

Then I daydream about a house in a little town where I can live and grow old
I'll forget all my prospects and all of the places that I have yet to go
I'll get a job and a yard and maybe a love of my own
I drive through Exeter, Rhode Island all alone

N train going home I am here alone
Night falls on city skin that's closed off and withering
I've been thinking of your face the last time that we embraced
It feeds me while I count stars from the back of this subway car

Sister what can I do?
Sister I miss you

He calls twice a week just to hear me speak
And we don't talk about what's gone and who's without
It's a stones throw to a black flower
It's got me counting hours
When a phone rings late a night
There's no way it's ever gonna be right again

Sister what can I do?
Sister I miss you

An ocean of longing.I spit out the song and
I laugh with tide that rolls in goes out
A bookshelf casts shadows they dance out my window
The kids in the neighborhood scream and shout

A puzzle of pieces
Mixed and unequal
I try to make sense of the shapes as they shift
I'm keeping a record
Desires that I can't afford
I hope to recieve each one as a gift

Today, today
Today I stop guessing and give you my heart
Today, today
Today is a blessing
You're far and I'm missing you
I can't wait to be with you if only to say
Stay, stay

Put your hand in mine
Just like you do all the time
In a room with the door closed
In a room when we're all alone

If there's a method to madness
And secrets bring sadness
I'll draw up a map we can leave today
Forget all the messes
We'll change our addresses
If there's one thing I know, it's how
To run away

Today
Today I stop guessing and give you my heart
Today, today
Today is a blessing
You're far and I'm missing you
I can't wait to be with you if only to say
Stay, stay

Today, today, today I stop guessing and give you my heart
Today, today, today is a blessing
You're far and I'm missing you
I can't wait to be with you if only to say
Stay, stay

Let's take a walk, we need to talk
Oh there's a lot that I've been keeping to myself for far too long
I know it's wrong, you're always asking what I think, and what I thought
And if it ever gets to be too much for
Me
Oh yes it does, oh yes it does

Let's have a drink, maybe a few
There's a lot of things I need to say to you
Like why I start and then I stop
Just short of getting to the top of where I want to really be
With you or not, maybe just me

Once in awhile I stop in this bullshit maze that I run
I look at my feet and then I look up at the sun
I wonder to myself if I'm having any fun
And then I run and start again

I'm out of breath most every day
Can't stop the racing in my heart or in my brain
I think I'm sick I think I'm well
It's never that easy to tell
Except for you - you always do
Just stop this shit, that's what you say
I hear it each and every single day
And you don't have to say a thing
No you don't have to say a thing
I can hear Oh I can hear you anyway

Once in a while I stop in this bullshit maze that I run
I look at my feet and then I look up at the sun
I wonder to myself if I'm having any fun
And then I run and start again

Oh it's a complicated rhyme
A bad transmission on borrowed time
A morning spent on your own
With too much coffee and a telephone
You navigate the lapse
Between what's coming and what has passed
A complicated rhyme
A bumpy ride through space and time

I want to know what you would do
If I came around and said to you
"We could make everything much easier
We could start over darling
We could make everything brand new."

Oh there's a price you have to pay
For wanting everything your own way
I pay it every day
And I'm not proud of that anyway
I put in so much time
Breaking down this complicated rhyme
I think I'm losing my mind
And I miss you baby all of the time

I want to know what you would do
If I came around and said to you
"We could make everything much easier
We could start over darling
We could make everything brand new."

Shoot me down again I understand
Why you think I lie
Why you think I'm fine
Why you think I tried to destroy our love

Everybody has to find the time to ask themselves
What would really help
And should I really tell?
Oh baby I'm sorry
I was so wrong
I was so wrong

You came into my life so suddenly
And I remember your face
Like it was yesterday
And it was me you saved
Oh baby I'm sorry
I was so wrong
I was so wrong
I was so wrong

When you're nerves are shot and you jump at every sound
And you know what it is but you can't just turn it down
You ask for clarity as you try to light a match
And your mind goes dark waiting for the flame to catch
You feel so strange like your head's up in the clouds
You'd break your back just to hear her say out loud

"Oh it's ok, I know why you had to go away
And I hate you most of the time
But i'll try to forgive you anyway
Yes i'll try to forgive you anway"

When the day drops in and you're still on last night
You can tell yourself it's cool but you know it ain't all right
Because you're looking for something you know you'll never find
It happens every day and you always change your mind
Like your mind's a thing that you ever could control
And you watched me trip into every single hole

But hey it's ok
You know why I had to go away
And you hate me most of the time
But you'll try to forgive me anyway
You'll try to forgive me anyway

Oh please just tell me how to
Cause i don't know how to be on my own

Oh it's been keeping me up
And when I sleep you're in my dreams
And it's always really strange and I don't know what it means
I hate myself because I know why it went wrong
And it breaks my heart like a beautiful sad song
The kind you hear when you think you've finally found
The way to block it all out but then you can't just turn it down

Oh baby please say
"I know why you had to go away
And I hate you most of the time
But I'll try to forgive you anyway
Yes I'll try to forgive you anyway
Yes I'll try to forgive you today
I'll try to forgive you today"

Here's a story that you never can erase
Everyone is looking at your dirty face
Do yourself a favor and just get out of this place

I've got half a mind to show up where I should not be
The other half knows that you're just plain fucking with me
I'm a glutton for punishment and baby you're so empty

And I think this makes us a perfect match
I've got that same itch it never helps to scratch

Here's a problem that you never seem to fix
I see you reaching for your same old bag of tricks
You strip down naked waiting for your crucifix

I could track you down like everyone before
Make you love me then show myself the door
It's so easy going in when you know the final score

And I think this makes us a perfect match
I've got that same itch it never helps to scratch

And I wonder what would happen if I just let go
I wonder what would happen if I told you no

Noooooooo

There's a reason that we're sitting here again
Talking about the same things we did way back then
You could be anyone as long as you don't let me in

And I think that makes us a perfect match
I've got that same itch it never helps to scratch

Tonight we ride, aim high
Shoot the bright lights right out of the sky
Patchwork quilts below cover everything like ice and snow

And baby we'll get so high
I hope we never come down
This is where I want to stay
I think we should live here
Way up in the stratosphere
Every minute of every day
Oh I want to stay

Tonight's the night, and we know
This is not happenstance, oh this is an overthrow!
The kingdom failed and they lied
So we must seize their power
And climb right back inside

And baby we'll get so high
I hope we never come down
Oh this is where I want to stay
I think we should live here
Way up in the stratosphere
Every minute of every day
Oh I want to stay

Tonight we ride, aim high
Shoot the bright lights right out of the sky
Patchwork quilts below cover everything like ice and snow

I believe in every word that you have spoken
I've been a witness to all the hearts you've broken
I've sat up with you all night drinking and smoking
And I just can't believe this you must be joking

I'll pick you up when you fall down
And I know the way to our hometown
And I think you're lost
Come on I'll bring you home
Come on let's go

There's people hurting people everywhere I turn and it makes me cry
I left you sleeping in your bed so sick you couldn't even say goodbye
And if she's watching us like I think she does I hope she sees how hard we try
To be like parts of her so different yet so perfectly aligned

And I'll pick you up when you fall down
And I know the way to our hometown
And I think you're lost
Come on I'll bring you home
Come on let's go

I like to remember all those summers, green hills and the dogs
Moving cars and open windows, lakes and trees and farms
Oh we were never going far

Maybe someday all of this will make sense to me and you
Until then we just keep on doing all the things we always do
And I just hope you know how much I care
I just hope you know...

I'll pick you up when you fall down
And I know the way to our hometown
And I think you're lost
Come on I'll bring you home
Come on let's go