Keep Me

This can't really be what life is all about
Learning how to live just to live without
The travesty's the irony and the irony is you
I've traded in my sanctity for a cheaper shade of blue

And as I surrender to this sunken bed
So afflicted by the tenant in my head
Even now, I wonder how you lay her down to sleep
When secretly I know it's my soul that you pray to keep
But will you really keep me?

Keep me on your porch, on your tongue
Beating in your chest, or coming undone
Folded neatly in the cover of your favorite book

Keep me at a distance in your maze
Fumbling through a contemplative haze, keep me
Or tucked away clandestinely where no one else will look
Where my broken sky reaches to your velvet sea
Will you keep me?

Drowning in the bottom of this empty glass
I pray, God is good and that this too shall pass
Then from the abyss maybe, I'll find a sweet reprieve
When the echo of your kiss reminds me to believe
That you'll always keep me

Keep me under God or on your wall
Behind closed doors forever after all
Or headed south on the blacktop ribbon we designed

Keep me, the mantle of integrity
Investing in something, I'll never see
Keep me at 30,000 feet or in the windows of your mind
In a corner of your heart under lock and key
Will you keep me?

Traipsing on hallowed ground has brought a lifelong sentence
Now living without your breath to fill my lungs will be my penance
And even as I feel, I hope, you feel it just as deeply
And even though you've let me go, say, "You'll always keep me"
Say, "You'll always keep me"

Keep me under God or on your wall
Behind closed doors forever after all
Or headed south on the blacktop ribbon we designed

Keep me, the mantle of integrity
Investing in something, I'll never see
Keep me at 30,000 feet or in the windows of your mind
In a corner of your heart under lock and key
Will you keep me?

The melody you misconstrue on the ocean crashing into you
Or waiting for the man you'll never have the heart to be
In the fervent strains of the tragic elegy
Will you keep me, will you keep me, will you keep me?