Ace of Cups

Lyrics

I wasn't asking for a downpour.

Just a glass of tap water at 4:18,
Standing barefoot in the draft.
A mist rolls through the window screen,
Still as a photograph.
A hand reaches out of the damp and the gray,
Holding a chalice I didn't earn.
It’s offering a drink I can’t turn away,
Watching the surface churn.

And it spills in five directions,
Over the gold rim, onto the floor.
I don’t have a name for this connection,
But I can't mop it up anymore.
It’s a heavy cup, it's an open throat,
Catching the whole ocean in a paper boat.

There’s a white bird on the rusted iron ledge,
Carrying a wafer in its beak.
It drops it in the water, right over the edge,
Like a secret you can't keep.
The brain wants a pattern in the way the drops fall,
But it’s just pure grace, making a stain.
I haven’t done a thing to deserve it at all,
I'm just standing in the rain.

And it spills in five directions,
Over the gold rim, onto the floor.
I don’t have a name for this connection,
But I can't mop it up anymore.
It’s a heavy cup, it's an open throat,
Catching the whole ocean in a paper boat.

Down below, where the puddles sit,
Wide green leaves push through the trash.
A lotus blooming in the gravel pit,
Rising from the cigarette ash.
My chest is cracking open, slow and wet,
A language that I haven’t learned to speak—
Not quite yet.

It spills in five directions,
Over the gold rim, onto the wood.
I’d try to build up some protections...
But I don't think I ever would.
It’s a heavy cup, the water’s running cold,
Too much for one pair of hands to hold.

Let it run.
Let it ruin the downstairs ceiling.
Just a hand from the cloud.
And the start of a feeling.