View from Our Bedroom Window

You are sleeping in the room alone now
You are restless in the night
When the lightning from the storm strikes, you shine
For a second in the light
I wait
For a moment when the weather breaks
I can feel you in the mattress shake
I can see the way an old pain holds you
Morning falling in the frame
You stay down
I faced my failure in no way I escaped it
In the calm before a breakdown takes
Like a rapture in the night
You fight hard
I faced my own pain in no way I embraced it
In the bedroom with the door locked tight
Like a coward when the flash burns bright I'll hide

Your hands burnt on the torch's flame
Lighting the path away
Brighter than lightning and burning
Striking the ground
We spend summers awake
We shake at shadow shapes
The wind it rattles our chains
We're always turning around

You were standing in the doorway
You were staring in the flames
How the fire from the house next door mixed
With the colors from the cop cars
I saw
Neighbors gathered in the alleyway
In the summer in the heat
I wait for a way that I can chase your pain out
Gather water for the flames
I wait

Nights we both shook
Any noise echoed in our room
Rattled on the floor like shells scattering
Or like hail falling on the hood of our car
Do you remember that drive south?
Coastbound just us two
Savannah west in the mirror
And winter in rearview burning
How the storm fell so harshly we felt swallowed
And traffic stopped before and behind us
Hard rain in sheets grey and unbroken
Hazards flashed dimly in all directions
Like small satellites or like lighthouse beacons
We turned the radio off
I gripped the wheel tight
When the storm burst and clouds split suddenly open to the sky
All colors at once and us dumbstruck with love and terror both
As if before us stood temples ancient and terrifying
The light refracting truth to see death and life in all things

Your hands burnt on the torch's flame
I was the last to change
Strike me like a lightning bolt and burning me down
Your hands burnt on the torch's flame
I was the last to change
Strike me like a lightning bolt and burning me down
The wind rattles our chains
We shake our fists at the pain
We shake at shadow shapes
We cup our hands in the storm
And watch our houses burning
We catch the rain to fight it