Swimming With Fire
Thomas Gunn

Lyrics

Ceres

Sometimes when I feel lost, I take a walk down to the statehouse,
Stand between the mounted cannons and reflect on what I know.

Then once I catch my breath, I take a walk along the byway,
Stopping only to look back at Ceres watching as I go.

It’s good to have routine when you feel no one else can see you,
When you’re stuck inside your head like an infant in the snow.

So once you catch your breath just take a walk along the byway,
Stopping only to look back at Ceres watching as you go.

Lipstick Ghost

When you’re the X-Kid, unemployed,
You wander aimless, paranoid.
Where did all the confusion go?
You’re just OK, kid, you’ll be alright,
You got someone to share the night,
‘Til the end of this human show.

Nothing protects me from the freckles on her cheeks.
Sometimes I feel her kisses floating on my speech.

Oh, Lipstick Ghost,
See you spooking ‘round your cryptic post.
With all your run around, why don’t you run around with me?

There’s no Sephora to supply
You with the horrors in my eyes,
Why is death hanging over me?
You haunt me in the nicest ways
With clever thoughts and loving gaze,
How I wish I could make you see.

Nothing protects me from the food stuck in her teeth.
When she moves through the walls I laugh and cry in disbelief.

Oh, Lipstick Ghost,
See you spooking ‘round your cryptic post.
With all your run around, why don’t you run around with me?
Oh, Lipstick Ghost,
Hear you checking on your nightly host.
With all your run around, why don’t you run around with me?

I won’t bleed for you, won’t bleed for you,
When nothing’s set in stone.
But if you haunt me all my days,
I’ll worship at your throne
And never leave you for my phone.

Rain Clouds

Feel the rain clouds forming,
There’s shelter up ahead.
Don’t hurt your head.

Thunder crashes over
The place you used to live,
When the heat just wouldn’t give.

And the flies they got you good.
You’re so misunderstood.

Feel the rain clouds forming,
Kiss the raindrops on her hair.
You don’t have a lot of time left
To see her stop and stare.

When the storm door closes
The shadows won’t be long,
So find where you belong.

But the flies they got you good.
You’re so misunderstood.

Like an inchworm on his thread,
You’re hanging left for dead, man.
When the rain falls on your head
It’s time to go to bed, man.

But the lies they got you good…
You’re so misunderstood.

Swimming With Fire

You were a flower on the cover of an album from ‘04.
Our final hour was the most important detail we ignored.
An empty promise in a world of make-believe that I devised,
And now you shower all your praise upon a partner in disguise.

Waiting tables in your memory
I’ll serve you truth to chase your reverie,
Just to watch you turn and serve another, too.

So I lay my head on a pillow next to yours.
No one said this’d be easy to endure.
How can I live my life when someone else is living it with you?

Another sunrise and it’s time to get myself up out of bed.
Another sunset and it’s time to drown the pounding in my head.

I lie awake in purgatory
Just to find an ending to our story,
As I scour every page and memory of you.

So I lay my head on a pillow next to yours.
Am I dead or are there problems I’ve ignored?
How can I live my life when someone else is living it with you?

But you have to do the right thing
Even if it points them in the wrong direction,
Based on your own point of view,
And though it kills you on the inside
You can know that at the end of this reflection
You did the best that you could do.

Virginia

Woke from a nightmare, found a horse I could ride to the shore.
Her name was Virginia, and she didn’t want to run anymore.
“Why are you so heavy, child? You’ll break my aching spine.”
I’m sorry, Virginia, but this heaviness isn’t mine.

Oh, I hide it away until the Doubtside.
I’ll ride high until the Outside’s on the In.

Got caught in a snowstorm, was so cold I nearly held hands with death.
Don’t blame my Virginia, cuz the cold had taken hold of her breath.
“Why did you keep running, child? You’ll never reach the light.”
I’m sorry, Virginia, you’ve got a long and lonely flight.

Oh, I hide it away until the Doubtside.
I’ll ride high until the Outside’s on the Inside

On the outskirts of the town I love lives a love I couldn’t hide
Until I found myself awake and cold on that Virginia mountainside.

I wish the Outside matched the Inside.
I wish the Inside matched the Outside

...I wish the Inside matched at all.

This Room

Tattered tavern tapestries
Lay strewn upon my stained-glass floor
I’ll hide them one day
When they’ve begun to rot or collect too many food scraps
That’s when I’ll hide them
One day

On another day I’ll vacuum my carpet
Clean up the dust
Suck out the contempt
Leave no trace of a lover’s tears
No more stains
No more scapegoats

Those curtains have to go too
The light they shield me from may one day heal
May one day see
No memory of where the pins were left
An impatient man’s solution
If only he would learn

What else is here
Of course, the full size bed
Throne of the enlightened
Keeper of the peace
An ocean and a fire all at once
It is still here

Look out the window on the left
Watch as rain and condensation collide
The cityfolk bustle
Hurrying to work
Scurrying to bed
Worrying to death

An array of greenery lives near this window
Two old three new
Newer still are new growths
A welcome sight in dark days
Small life
Wide grins

If you saw this place in your dreams
Please wake up
It’s not for you

But if you did
Write it down

Tell me more

Hope

In a world where there’s no hope,
There’s a censor like a ghost that clouds the mind.
In a world where there’s no hope,
A mortuary host will cloud your mind.

I can’t fall in love again.

In a world where there’s no hope,
A fiction-maker’s joke can ease the mind.
In a world where there’s no hope,
The fortune-teller’s toke won’t ease your mind.

I can’t fall in love again.

There’s too many pieces,
Too many pieces of what I once was before.
Find me here, find me there.
Won’t you hide me here?
Please just hide me here?

In a world where there’s no hope,
A lover’s lonely note can lose the mind.
In a world where there’s no hope,
The reason that you wrote will lose your mind.

I can’t fall in love again.

There’s too many pieces,
Too many pieces of what I once was before.
Find me here, find me there.
Won’t you hide me here?
Please just hide me here?

I don’t want to fall in love,
I want to climb it like a ladder,
Rising past what doesn’t matter ‘til my chatter starts to fade
And I won’t stop until I find it,
That elusive melody,
Then maybe one day I’ll wake up and you’ll be staring back at me.

If I could turn back time,
I’d sing the visions of my future through your window:
“Hope is in your rhyme!”
What are you waiting for?
What am I waiting for!

All written by Thomas Gunn
©2020 Ginger Beard House Records
Thomas Gunn Music