Thumb in the Dam

Lost track of time in a grocery line
The checkout kid looks at his phone and smiles
He says I used to smoke weed, it helped with my sleep
But now I don't like how it makes me feel

A friend that we knew asks what happened to you
I said there wasn't a thing then that I could do
I wish her the best, wherever she is
Sometimes I race through the park like I lost my kids

Hey! Nobody knew
No one relates on the streets you're passing
Hey! Nobody knew
Nobody there on the streets with you

At a boulangerie on the Upper West Side
Approaching the glass like it'd been no time
I wanna be mad, wanna curse you and howl
But I lose all my words at the touch of your hand

I say: hey
Hey
Hey
Hey

Hey! Nobody new
Wandering out in the world could match it
Hey — when my life is all through
The closest I'd get to a human was you

When your band was my band
And your dog was my dog
Your paintings and your guitar were there, hanging on my wall
And your room was my room
Your t-shirts and your clothes
Your records and the big mattress and the toothpaste and the soap

And your pain was my pain, every enemy you made
Every fight that I backed you up, the friendships we'd both break
Cuz your love was my love, the only kind that I could show
You yourself had first shown to me, 18 and hollow

I was 18 with no self
Empty, just a shell
A vacant body for you to fill up with your own self
With you-ness that piled up, until I had forgot
That you were who I had made myself, buried down so much

Cuz you were who I was
Your dog was my dog
Yours was all of the pain I felt when your life fell apart
And I miss my best friend
But mostly the person neither of us can be again
And I'll miss our two absences