The Windows Break

Piles and piles
of old magazines
Windows locked up and hidden from the street.
In a crawlspace, forgotten money.
People tensing and waiting to come back home.
You can feel the tension in the house
the moment you walk through the door.
Sudden madness allow me in again.

When the first train flies past the house, miles away
the screaming starts and it feels like minefield,
neighbors silently hiding in the shadows.
There's a person locked in, behind that door -
Don't let anybody catch you turning the handle.
It's a long, long night.
It's going to be an awful and lonely night.

Well...you can blot out the years and abandon the jungle
Cover up the tapes and refuse to look back,
but your own right hand is not gonna save your soul.
You have been followed! Ah, the mechanics.
All the reactions that seem to attach themselves.
It's been a very very very long year
and it's gonna be an even longer night.

And then a screen door slams; the windows break.
A woman just jumps and scrapes at the hood of a car.
When the car backs up into a streetlight,
all of the neighbors call the cops.
She falls off and the car speeds away
Headed for the border of a far away state.
It's gonna mean an hour of freedom
with the radio and quarter-filled gas tank.
And a quarter filled gas tank
With the high beams on
And the windows down...