Ace of Swords

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1]
Four-thirteen in the freezing dark
The radiator gives a single metallic spark
And the white fog rolling off the river parts
Like a giant hand out of the weather.
I was spinning the argument over the bed
Every circular thing that we ever said
But the atmosphere drops, and the temperature sheds
And the loose ends suddenly tether.

[Chorus]
Here is the steel sitting straight on the desk
Here is the cut that finally names it
A perfect vertical, entirely breathless
No one to blame, and no way to frame it.
The point is crowned with a brittle green wreath
A palm frond draped on the edge of the teeth
The absolute drop to the jagged mountains beneath—
Oh, the clarity hurts on the way in.

[Verse 2]
I wanted the answer, I begged for the proof
I paced out the length of the hardwood roof
Now it’s standing right here, so terribly aloof
And I cannot put it back in the scabbard.

It’s exactly the thing I was terrified of
Not malice, not anger, just the end of the glove
Just the mathematical limit of love
Spelled out on a fluorescent placard.

[Chorus]
Here is the steel sitting straight on the desk
Here is the cut that finally names it
A perfect vertical, entirely breathless
No one to blame, and no way to frame it.
The point is crowned with a brittle green wreath
A palm frond draped on the edge of the teeth
The absolute drop to the jagged mountains beneath—
Oh, the clarity hurts on the way in.

[Bridge]
Listen to the consonants click in the lock
Tick-tick-tick of the kitchen clock
My brain was a static of white-noise talk
Desperately hunting a pattern.
Now there is only this dividing stroke
The singular sentence I finally spoke
The fever broke.
The fever broke, and the facts of it gather.

[Outro]
Just the hand in the cold
Just the grip on the hilt
Not a drop of it spilled.
Just the jagged rooftops in the violet light
I am right.
I am right.
And I have to leave.