The Rat House Lyrics

Take Reed's Lake three times

It's two a.m. and the ice doesn't give to my surprise

So I walk back home take off my boots turn on the stereo

My black eyes glaze over at the posters in my room

And the real contents of the closet echo what happened

On that cursed campus night just last May

So I take the postal box and throw it away

Not before taking photographs of each object like a

Forensic scientist taking evidence of my upcoming death

We've all got debts to pay

Like Moses when he killed the man and ran away

Or when Cassy drove to Athens through the night

Telling no one but myself about her new life in the South

Renting a room from the drummer of The Apples in Stereo

Doing shifts at Ciné and existing completely alone

devoid of history or relationships and responsibility

Down the block at Ike and Jane every day order the same thing

A chicken salad sandwich and an iced coffee

In the basement of my mind listening to Why?

Lose him in the pit, waiting for the Six

I see Justin on their bike, they don't hear me and ride by

The whiskey winter scars the Spring, this evil city sustains me

Darken the streets in my night clothes, tread gently around the potholes

Like Hamsun in Kristiania seeking salvation in hunger

Completely satisfied in loneliness, existing without witnesses:

A living ghost

Slept too late again

Listening to favourite bands

Frightened of the end

To this way of living

Heard a friend of a friend

You're leaving Michigan

All the kids will talk shit

But they'll never understand

What it's like to sleep in an empty house

When your brother's gone and your luck's run out

And ice pours through every broken window

And all the friends we've known

And the Age that's come and gone

Oyster Boys and Oyster Girls

And all the house shows