The phone slips from a loose grip.
Words were missed, then some apology.
I didn’t want to tell you this—
No, it’s just some guy she’s been hanging out with—
I don’t know, the past couple of weeks, I guess.
Thank you and hang up the phone.
Let the funeral start, hear the casket close.
Let’s pin split-black ribbon to your overcoat.
The laughter pours from under doors in this house.
I don’t understand that sound no more.
Seems artificial, like a T.V. set.
Haligh, Haligh, a lie, Haligh
This weight, it must be satisfied.
You offer only one reply.
You know not what you do.
As you tear and tear your hair from roots.
Of that same head you’ve twice removed
Now a lock of hair you said would prove
Our love would never die.
Well, ha ha ha.
I remember everything
The words we spoke on freezing South Street
All those mornings watching you
Get ready for school.
You combed your hair inside that mirror,
The one you painted blue
And glued with jewelry tears.
Something about those bright colors
Would always make you feel better.
But now we speak with ruined tongues
And the words we say aren’t meant for anyone.
It’s just a mumbled sentence to
A passing acquaintance,
But there was once you.
You said you hate my suffering, and you understood,
And you’d take care of me.
You'd always be there.
Well, where are you now?
Haligh, Haligh, a lie, Haligh,
The plans were never finalized,
But left to hang like yarn and twine,
Dangling before my eyes.
As you tear and tear your hair from roots
From that same head that you have twice removed
Now, a lock of hair you said would prove
Our love would never die.
And I sing and sing of awful things
(The pleasure that my sadness brings)
As my fingers press onto the strings,
Yet another clumsy chord.
Haligh, Haligh, an awful lie.
This weight would now be satisfied.
I'm gonna give you only one reply,
I know not who I am.
But I talk in the mirror
To the stranger that appears.
Our conversations are circles
Always one sided, nothing is clear.
Except we keep coming back
To this meaning that I lack.
He says the choices were given
And now, you must live them
Or just not live,
But do you want that?
