The Man with the Axe

If I had to break it down

I'd say it's the way you love to dance

Moving the furniture when my back is turned

The flick of the lights, and the world falls away

And your office job and your silver hair

But our shapes in the dark are

The reason I've stayed for all these years

I thought I was a genius, but now I'm 22

And it's starting to feel like all I know how to do is

Put on a suit, and take it away

With my fistful of tunes that it's painful to play

Fingernail worlds like favorite seashells

They fill up my nights, and then they float away

I've got hundreds of gowns, I've got paintings in frames

And a throat that fills with panic every festival day

Dutifully falling apart for the Princess of Norway

But you with your doll's lashes, your infinite T-shirts

I should've known when your favorite record was the same as my father's

You'd take me down

I guess I'll always be this way

Swallowed up by the words and halfway to space

But there, by the fire, you offered your hand

And as I took it, I loved you, the boy with the plan

You felled me clean as a pine

The man with the axe

And the light in his eyes

We've been through so many hard times

I'm writing a love song for you, baby