In the times that we were apart My thoughts would drag me Kicking and screaming into daydreams I fantasized about your profile in neon lights And whispering that it was alright Into ears made of wrongdoing In the times we were apart I wrote letters to the Pennsylvania gods Begging to bring you back whole So I could rectify my bad words My guilt was my perdition And my housewife disposition Fake feathers and silver bracelets Made no sense at all I lost myself in you once Never to return I had time to kill and pictures to burn Oh, Katie Who did you become when you hung up the phone? I was young and had rainbows in my eyes Sparkling like the glitter perfume you left on my sleeves When you grabbed onto me and refused to let go But when I drove you home I could barely see the road Because you’d signed your name on my steering wheel And that's what lovers did I may have seemed afraid When I held onto your porcelain fingers Just a little too tight But part of me wondered How long it would take Before they finally shattered The words to the bluebird songs didn't matter Because your voice hung in my ears like cobwebs And these empty halls remember your echoes When you told me what your father said And when you told me what your mother failed to do I was willing to go to war for you Put on a uniform and hide behind obscenities Screamed two hundred miles away But I assured you if I was there, you'd be safe If you could have seen me every morning Standing hunched over the letters you wrote me I had stuffed underneath sweet sixteen skin While I waited in the cold for the bus If you knew how much I did my best to forget how to cry When I tried to ignore the pathetic pounding Of an absent heart grown fonder When I responded to your 2AM texts six hours late If you knew how much I wished I could be someone That could make it all better Maybe this would feel right, somehow But it doesn't I’m talking in circles to myself Nestled under a wet blanket of uncertainty But I want you to know That when I prayed to the stars that you'd stay alive And when your November tears bled me dry I want you to know that it was you, Katie You were what made this painful Something missing inside me begged to be yours Maybe it was my entire being or maybe it was more There was just something about you that latched on And once, you matched the inside of my heart Like the sunshine piece of this cynical puzzle That I didn't think anyone but you could solve In the times that we were apart My heart would beat in time with yours I’d touch the screen and wait Until I saw your face again And while my sore throat said “Goodnight, Katie” Our story read The end.
Ronnie Toone 