Everything Costs Money

I'm crouching knees under my swollen chin
In an icebox two feet wide
Fading like the ghost I've always been
Held back shut out from the open sky
In dreams I ride the back of Icarus
To a height above the sun
But in life I can't afford to ride the bus
I chew air just like it's chewing gum

I lean for hours on a brick wall spitting dirt
Too stiff to feel free and too bored to get hurt
Falling easily out of love like it's eating cake
I feel the loss but can't afford the heartbreak
When everything costs money

I haven't washed my hair in fourteen days
And it shines like broken glass
There's nothing I can do but pray for rain
I know, know that this will never pass
I've walked for miles through a seething fire
To a lake of snakes and mud
For one sweet chilling drink to stay alive
I walk and the lake it seems to run

There are days I'm less behind than the day before
But with every day the fire hurts me more
I remember every time I could die of thirst
That for the afterlife I'd want a pack of cigarettes first
And everything costs money

A startled motor sputters in the grass
And it eats up everything
It's deadly to wonder how long this could last
Thirst shouts louder than devotion sings

The water grief swims in never settles down
There hunger floats and there my spirit drowns
To the moon and back blue and green pigeons stream the sky
They don't look at you and you don't ask them why
Just everything costs money
Everything costs money