Excerpt, Chapter 8: “Perfect Strangers”

Before they were famous Even long after they remained lovers In honeymoon suites, rooftops Railyards and gas station restrooms The world seemed so vast once Time passed, malevolent and slower Clenched in the fist like a piece of glass Clinging at each other's breasts and forearms When all the colors of the night Get lost within the frame Each brick in the dollhouse could use a fresh coat of paint And they're holding hands Clandestine, calm and quaint In long, lonely aisles That we'd be lucky to walk someday I want to be anything but Now that we're famous Baby we're boring and lonesome Let's ditch California The West is not near enough wasted nor loathsome Tarantulas and Janus Are tugged along by strings and strawmen Let's murder Lucio and Casey the actors And maybe yet save the person When all the colors of the night Are refracted in prisms and panes Smile or snarl for the cameras They've always looked at us the same In long lonely aisles or jumping off the page They'll build us cathedrals only to be razed I want to be anywhere but here Before they were famous They were simply perfect strangers Changing channels with the bloodlust To long after the cue, ignore "exit stage-left" Now that they're famous Young, rich and frighteningly aimless Might love each other a little less But what they can't give another They make up for in excess Cause the world seemed so vast once Confined with each season but never any closer We only get as far as our two left feet Baby I don't want to feel this sober