Buster Sword

Lyrics

I am a ridiculous thing.
Let’s start with that.

The first one kept me strictly on his back,
afraid to scratch the finish, afraid to let me chip.
The second swung me like a heavy door,
laughing as he lost and found his grip.
Then you. You took me from the cooling dirt.
You let your right shoulder drop to take the strain,
until the mass of me was mapped into your frame.

I am seventy pounds of blunt ambition.
A broadsword built for giants, handed down to boys.
I never feared the monster or the mission,
I never feared the metal-on-metal noise.
My terror was the silence on the hill.
My terror was the day you’d put me down,
and leave me in the bedrock, standing still.
A heavy cross just outside of town.

There are two empty sockets bored above my guard.
They used to hold the fire, or the healing green.
Now the wind blows through them when it’s getting cold,
a hollow little whistle for the things I’ve seen.
I was supposed to wear down. I was supposed to break.
Not sit here as a tombstone for the boys who didn't wake.

I am seventy pounds of blunt ambition.
A broadsword built for giants, handed down to boys.
I never feared the monster or the mission,
I never feared the metal-on-metal noise.
My terror was the silence on the hill.
My terror was the day you’d put me down,
and leave me in the bedrock, standing still.
A heavy cross just outside of town.

The rain is pitting my flat side at last.

The first one would be devastated by the rust.
But I would trade the glory of the past
to be swung one more time in the living dust.

I’m just a slab of iron.
I only know how to fall.
Don't make me a memory.
Don't leave me holding down the dead.

I'm too heavy for a ghost.
You should have carried me instead.