From A Balance Beam lyrics

Song information

Artist: Bright Eyes
Album: There Is No Beginning To The Story

Lyrics

There is a man holding a megaphone, he must have been the voice of god
The bystanders claimed they saw angels flying up and down the block
Well, they must have been attached to wires
I'd seen one laying in the lawn with a broken arm, so I called 911
Well that's one less founded opinion
One more cause for a dispute
So the street filled, like a basin, up with cameras and their crews
And they washed away the rumors leaving just the concrete truth
It was a spectacle
No, i, I mean a miracle

So then I fell like that girl from a balance beam
A gymnasium of eyes all were holding on to me
I lifted one foot to cross the other and I felt myself slipping
It was a small mistake
Sometimes that is all it takes

Now I'm staring at my wrist, hoping that the time is right
When the planets will align
There will be no planets to align
Just the carcass of the sun
And little painted marbles spinning senseless through an endless black sky

It was in a foreign hotel's bathtub I baptized myself in change
And one by one I drowned all of the people I had been
I emerged to find the parallels were fewer
I was cleansed
I looked in the mirror
And someone new was there
But, I was as helpless as a chess piece when I was lifted up by someone's hand
And delivered from the corner my enemies had got me in
But in all of my salvation I still felt imprisoned inside that holding cell that is myself

So I wait for the day when I'll hear the key as it turns in the lock
And the guard will say to me, "oh my patient prisoner you waited for this day and finally, you are free! you are free! you are freezing."
Now I'm staring at the sun, waiting for it to explode
Because a day is gonna come, don't know when but it will come
And we'll finally know the way out of here
And I'll throw away this wrinkled map
And my chart of stars and compass, cracked
And I'll climb that tree all wet with sap to avoid the hungry beasts below I'll cut out my lover's tongue and sing of a graveyard gray and a garden green
And we won't have to worry no more
No we won't have to wonder again
About how this song or story ends
About how this song and story will end