Two Steps Forward

In the middle of September, we entertained the thought

Of falling into rabbit holes and never coming out

In the garden of a girl whose mum is friends with Elton John

So she kept telling us

But still

We slipped a year or so behind ourselves, the time's already gone

When people were just people, not the jobs that they perform

Our songs were just a thing we did with melodies and chords

Now you're available in all good record stores

But I knew you best

Back when love was just a feeling that ran out between my legs

Onto the back of my dress

Onto the clothes that I was wearing

Oh, when I was a child I was expected to believe

In something up above that no one touches or can see

But they tell me that unless you're looking out of magazines

Well then, you don't exist

But I knew that you were real before I read it in an interview today

Before I used you as a surface, did a line across your face

In the toilet of a girl who's sitting outside

Dropping names like they were carpet bombs

She knows everyone

But I knew you first

Back when love was underneath you

With my fingers in the dirt

You said, 'I'll stop if it hurts'

You said, 'I'll stop it if it's scaring'

You said 'You know that I can stop this any time

If you think that it is tearing'

And I think of you when the leaves are brown

I think of leaves that I have felt

Against my body on the ground

I think of places where we could go to now

Until they find us, 'til they catch us

'Til they wake us and we drown

Until I know where I am

I'm in a garden half-remembering your fingers in my hand

Were like a book made of sand

And it's the middle of September, your image starts to fade

To the one that they have printed on the 27th page

Don't like to read these things, you know I do it anyway

I have no choice

I have no choice, I say

And I go out in the garden, where the birds begin to sing

And I'm troubled by the thought of all the daylight they will bring

And I think that I will let somebody take me home again

'Cause if I knew you at all

Then my love was underneath you, making puddles on the floor

And I'm asleep to the thought of two people walking two steps forward

Always to the lives they've chosen

Clicks and hums and sirens in the sun