Fire Far Away

I burned my mouth on understanding.
Ate my words before they cooled.

I don’t want to say I’m sorry.
It disrupts my productivity.

Why is it the stain of tongues can never wash away?
So lay in bed, and count lucky stars
until the fractions all make sense.
Tell me just how much light you’re getting
from a fire far away.

Yeah, lay in your bed,
and count in your head.
Ain’t this quite the familiar place?
I hope that I sometimes appear while you do,
that I’m still a familiar face.

I hope the crickets don’t consume you,
why you lay there wondering why.
I only hate that I did try to hurt you,
that when I left I took back my goodbye.

You don’t care. You just stare
and say you can’t sleep anymore.
You told me you hear scratching in surround sound.
I didn’t stay anyway.
I won’t be silenced anymore.
When you hushed, I didn’t come back down. I fell.
My regret’s that you forget
I’m not what keeps you up at night.
The ghost of me is gone,
mice make the sounds in the walls.
I burned my mouth on cruel retractions,
left you calculating fractions.
Tiny, twinkling nightlights
are just fires far away.

I bet you’re cursing cricket violins
beneath unwashed white cotton sheets.

while you wallow in your pillow,
please know I take no joy in pain.
I still can’t look at myself in the eyes.
Misdirection, cursed reflection,
I’m not sure why I’m calling now.
I guess the guilt became too much to deal with.
Not to worry, I’m not sorry.
I just didn’t mean to make you think
that everything would be alright,
and let you keep on treating me this way.

You threw the fault when you got lost.
It hit the window, turned to frost.
I was so dissatisfied, my tongue worked faster than my mind.

The lie was that the words were just in haste.
So find yourself, and call me back
you bittersweet insomniac,
or thank your lucky stars you can’t pin my voice up to a face.

Just turn your ringer on, at least.
I’ve only one more thing to say.
If nothing, I’m not sorry.
My mouth’s on fire far away.