Shadows Of The Man He Used To Be - Sofia de Medeiros

[ti:Parameters]
[ar:Ani DiFranco]
[al:Knuckle Down]
[by:]
[offset:500]
[00:00.00]Ani DiFranco - Parameters
[00:17.12]
[00:19.12]Thirty-three years go by
[00:20.42]And not once do you come home
[00:21.45]To find a man sitting in your bedroom
[00:24.78]That is
[00:25.53]A man you don't know
[00:26.72]Who came a long way to deliver one very specific message:
[00:31.94]Lock your back door, you idiot
[00:34.17]However invincible you imagine yourself to be
[00:36.86]You are wrong
[00:37.85]
[00:48.41]Thirty-three years go by
[00:49.83]And you loosen the momentum of teenage nightmares
[00:53.20]Your breasts hang like a woman's
[00:55.28]And you don't jump at shadows anymore
[00:58.33]Instead you may simply pause to admire
[01:00.53]Those that move with the grace of trees
[01:02.76]Dancing past streetlights
[01:06.21]And you walk through your house without turning on lamps
[01:09.18]Sure of the angle from door to table
[01:11.35]From table to staircase
[01:13.32]Sure of the number of steps
[01:15.02]Seven to the landing
[01:16.16]Two to turn right
[01:17.79]Then seven more
[01:19.34]Sure you will stroll serenely on the moving walkway of memory
[01:23.71]Across your bedroom
[01:24.70]And collapse with a sigh onto your bed
[01:27.65]Shoes falling
[01:28.82]Thunk thunk
[01:29.89]Onto the floor
[01:30.94]And there will be no strange man
[01:32.85]Suddenly all that time sitting there
[01:35.37]Sitting there on what must be the prize chair
[01:38.04]In your collection of uncomfortable chairs
[01:40.69]With a wild look in his eyes
[01:42.31]And hands that you cannot see
[01:43.83]Holding what?
[01:44.68]You do not know
[01:45.77]
[01:51.77]So sure are you of the endless drumming rhythm of your isolation
[01:56.29]That you are painfully slow to adjust
[02:00.33]If only because
[02:01.73]Yours is not that genre of story
[02:05.39]Still and again, life cannot muster the stuff of movies
[02:09.25]No bullets shattering glass
[02:11.31]Instead fear sits patiently
[02:14.02]Fear almost smiles when you finally see him
[02:16.59]Though you have kept him waiting for thirty-three years
[02:19.39]And now he has let himself in
[02:21.11]And he has brought you fistfuls of teenage nightmares
[02:24.02]Though you think you see, in your naivete
[02:26.48]That he is empty handed
[02:27.69]And this brings you great relief
[02:30.15]At the time
[02:31.39]
[02:35.82]New as you are, really, to the idea that
[02:38.78]Even after you've long since gotten used to the parameters
[02:41.76]They can all change
[02:43.52]While you're out one night having a drink with a friend
[02:45.83]Some big hand may be turning a big dial
[02:48.79]Switching channels on your dreams
[02:50.59]Until you find yourself lost in them
[02:53.10]And watching your daily life with the sound off
[02:58.71]And of course having cautiously turned down
[03:01.24]the flame under your eyes
[03:03.28]There are more shadows around everything
[03:05.71]Your vision a dim flashlight
[03:07.30]that you have to shake all the way to the outhouse
[03:10.51]Your solitude elevating itself like the spirit of the dead
[03:14.32]Presiding over your supposed repose
[03:17.49]Not really sleep at all
[03:19.45]Just a sleeping position and a series of suspicious sounds
[03:23.55]A clanking pipe
[03:24.92]A creaking branch
[03:25.95]The footfalls of a cat
[03:28.49]
[03:37.58]All of this and maybe
[03:39.56]The swish of the soft leather of your intruder's coat
[03:43.22]As you walk him step by step back to the door
[03:46.53]Having talked him down off the ledge of a very bad idea
[03:50.70]Soft leather, big feet, almond eyes
[03:53.77]The kinds of details the police officer would ask for later
[03:56.95]With his clipboard
[03:58.38]And his pistol
[03:59.77]In your hallway
[04:01.18]
[04:29.05]
[05:09.36]
[05:54.37]END