Pink Bullets

The Shins · Chutes Too Narrow [2003]

I was just bony hands as cold as a winter pole

you held a warm stone out new flowing blood to hold

oh what a contrast you were

to the brutes in the halls

my timid young fingers held a decent animal.



Over the ramparts you tossed

the scent of your skin and some foreign flowers

tied to a brick

sweet as a song

the years have been short but the days were long.



Cool of a temperate breeze from dark skies to wet grass

we fell in a field it seems now a thousand summers passed

when our kite lines first crossed

we tied them into knots

and to finally fly apart

we had to cut them off.



Since then it's been a book you read in reverse

so you understand less as the pages turn

or a movie so crass

and awkardly cast

that even I could be the star.



I don't look back as much as a rule

and all this way before murder was cool

but your memory is here and I'd like it to stay

warm light on a winter's day.



Over the ramparts you tossed

the scent of your skin and some foreign flowers

tied to a brick

sweet as a song

the years have been short but the days go slowly by

two loose kites falling from the sky

drawn to the ground and an end to flight.