Back

Atoms Tab

by Emmy The Great


                    
I know you’re going soon
   
It’s ok, I won’t freak
                                      
Can see it in your eyes, you’ve been moving out for weeks
                                   
You’ve found a girl, she’s so much prettier than me
  
She’s much cleverer than me
  
She’s so much happier than me

                           
You want a lover who takes time over her looks
                                  
Not some stupid kid who’s always wrapped up in her books
                        
But can I help it if a sentence makes me cry?

And the pavement makes me cry

And the thought of you and I

            
Oh, just leave
                     
There’s nothing much I want to say
                 
But close the door
                                          
You know how the atmosphere decays my bones
              
I feel the atoms on my skin
                
Oh, I feel the matter closing in



                          
From my perch I see the universe as one
                                        
See the planets in their glory, slowly dancing with the sun
                                     
See my ancestors in monkey costumes fucking on the rocks
                                          
See the priestess and her brother and the farmer and his crops

                                 
All these sacred histories have led to this one day
                                          
When you face me on the stairs and say you have to go away
                                     
And time stops like ice where all around it once was hot
                                              
So don’t begrudge a girl her books cos they’re all a girl has got

                
They sit there now
                       
The words unflinching in their strength
            
You see I only ever read
                                                             
Cos I wish I was brave as them
                                             
And I know these words will never leave me standing on the stairs
                                    
Just like my frozen ancestors they always will be there
                                     
In print, just like your image on my heart
                                    
For ever like the planets light the dark
                                       
Just like our world is waltzing with the sun
                                            
Just like when this world explodes it makes another one

               
Oh you, just leave
                  
I always wanted you to be free
                                   
But next time you see the planets try and think of me
                                        
And this moment on a stairway where I thought that I could see
                                            
All the atoms in your lover, she’s much prettier than me
                                      
And can I help it if an atom makes me cry?
                                    
I can’t help it if she’s happier than I