If blessings come in disguise so do curses
Heralded by suspiciously kind nurses
They offer coffee and tea
And shrink wrapped shortbread cookies
Anything you need, they say, anything you need
Well how about another decade, or three
Or a time machine or at least some sort of warning
This isn’t supposed to be happening
They were just supposed to fix your knees
You’d be gone for a week and then back on your feet
But now you’re bound to a bed
And serpentine tubes hiss and twist like they’d rather die than givе you oxygen
We take turns approaching your sidе saying final goodbyes as you struggle to breathe
Your lips are dried and cracked like you’ve been wandering through the desert for the past month and a half
And in a way you have
It was a bright and sunny day
What seems a lifetime ago
When a preliminary test found a tumor the size of New Mexico in your chest
Next thing I know, it’s a month later, I’m wearing my finest clothes
And I’m standing in a funeral parlor reading a handwritten note your granddaughter wrote and placed in your casket
I don’t completely remember the specifics
But I think it went something like this
I love you sooooo(o) much
Those 5 or 6 o’s still don’t do that love justice
I miss you
I wish you were here
You were my hero
You made my life better
That letter put it better than I ever could
Those words lunged from the page like fangs, pierced my heel and drew blood
I hid in the bathroom to suck the venom from my wounds
And i found myself singing a short, smooth little tune
It struck hard and it struck fast
Like a rattlesnake hiding in the grass
I suppose I’m usually more poetic
I suppose I don’t usually plagiarize a 7 year old
But death is not poetic and it cannot be captured with animal metaphors
I usually weave narratives with meticulous stitching and fabric characters
But I’m the character for once
And I don’t like it very much
I usually invent people in my mind and build the details of their lives
Draw their pitfalls and joys like a topographic map
The low slopes and sudden cliffs
The hills and the mountains
I usually construct characters and write rhyming lines about their lives
But this time the ones I love most are the ones I got on my mind
It struck hard and it struck fast
Like a rattlesnake hiding in the grass
Find more lyrics at westlyrics.com
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