Who Fell Asleep In

She turned her back on the church

And put all her faith in me

At the back of the chapel

Where I taught her to screw and to blaspheme

We turned our backs to the church

With our trousers around our knees

While screaming the scriptures

She said I was her favourite heresy

In a note I read:

"If you should go blind and deaf

I'll cleanse and I'll bathe you and I'll cook for you daily

I will take a dry ballpoint pen and trace on your chest

All of the same conversations that we have now in bed"

I don't mean to be selfish

But I think I'd sooner just be dead

Behind the tennis court alongside the river

Not a single live flower to see

This is the one girl who woke up from all that

And now falls asleep next to me

But I swear now

Every time that I kiss her

She feels her God breathe on her shoulder

It pains me, but I'm sure she's still yours

She said she wanted a sea burial

Not grass and hypodermics to her hips

I pruned the ivy from your grandmother's tomb

More tender and careful than the superstitious

Ripped you from your mother's womb

In a note I wrote:

"I think too much about the end

But being around, it made me feel like I'm coping

Now, when I view the cemetery

I don't see headstones

I see rows of engraved milk teeth

Hungry, waiting for me"

And though I'm fearful

I think I just crave the relief

Behind the tennis court alongside the river

Paper flower's still beautiful thing

This is the one girl who woke up from all that

And now falls asleep next to me

But I swear now

Every time that I kiss her

She feels her God breathe on her shoulder

It pains me, but I'm sure she's still yours