Tarot · Track 57 · middle
Eight of Swords
RWS: a bound and blindfolded woman standing in mud among eight swords planted around her like a fence, a castle on the crag above, and her bindings are visibly loose. Keywords: the self-made trap, helplessness believed in, the way out that nobody thought to look for.
No audio yet — generation pending.
Lyrics
The knot around my wrists is just a slip-hitch. The linen on my eyes is letting light bleed in. I’m standing in the puddle of a cold ditch. The castle on the crag is looking pretty thin. Except the castle on the crag is just my second-story flat. I left the radiator running and the front door cracked, But I am pacing in the yard, I have planted eight swords, Tying up my own hands with a fourteen-dollar cord. Why step out, when the trap is so complete? Why go upstairs, when the mud is freezing deep? There are gaps in the steel, there is space to walk through, There is nothing in the dark that is forcing me to stay. The rope is going slack, it is slipping clean away. But the nervous system is a beautiful machine... It connects the random points to keep the panic clean. I itemize the dangers of the wet grass. I calculate the sharpness of the iron stakes. I tell myself I'm cornered by the overpass, A victim of the weather and the heavy ache. I am paralyzed, terrified, caught in the damp, I am stuck in the center of a self-inflicted trap. If I just shift my weight, the blindfold will fall, And I’d have to admit there is no prison here at all. Why step out, when the trap is so complete? Why go upstairs, when the mud is freezing deep? There are gaps in the steel, there is space to walk through, There is nothing in the dark that is forcing me to stay. The rope is going slack, it is slipping clean away. But the nervous system is a beautiful machine... It connects the random points to keep the panic clean. I hear a car drive by. It splashes in the street. The water hits my ankles. I am shivering in the sleet. I could pull my arms apart. I could open up my eyes. I could drop the stupid rope. I could drop the alibis. But if I walk out of the circle... If I leave the swords behind... Then the failure and the fault, Are entirely mine. The bindings are visibly loose. I stand in the mud. I don't move. I could. But it's safer if I don't.