Before too long I'm gonna go away.
I'll walk the unswept streets and the humid heats
In the uncleaned city of L.A.
There are things I'm sure I'll break as I make my way;
Laws and promises, hearts and confidences--
That's the sad way we work today.
My heart'll find its home out in the West,
In the form of a man who will enclose my hands,
And he'll spill all his words out and digress.
We'll have four children, then never get our rest,
And we'll apologize when they finally find out that
Mothers do not always know best.
The sun will stain our skin,
And then illness can take us, our treatments will break us,
And we might not ever be whole again.
Then we'll never know
If there will always be borders and pain and disorders
And longing and fences to slip below.
Our children will grow old after we die,
While we sleep in the ground with our roots all around
Or our ashes will wade through the deep sky,
And they will miss our lives, and so will I,
But they'll think of when we walked the unswept streets
And we tucked in their sheets
And they'll smile while they cry.