When you see me next
I’ll be at the ceremony
One eye peeled open
Nine hundred knives
And thirty three men around the table
Telling all the best I know
“It’s all over from here”
And “it’s never so easy”
And “there’s nothing left for you here”
Million hands tied behind backs
For the certain crime of living

For the caged bird knows
This south still feels winter
And even the goldfish remembers
She is no shark
And the sloth knows he cannot run
And mother nature is unloving
So the caged bird can only scream
And the goldfish can only swim
And the sloth shall break his branches
But the friction creates no fire
So this winter shall be coldest of all

So when you see me next
I’ll be carving lines into the wall
Feigning some jailhouse blues
For they ripped me from my body
So maybe Cash or Nelson will do
And maybe the futility is the point
They want to carve into me
Maybe they just want my friends dead
Just to put it on someone
Maybe they shot me in Reno
Just to watch me die

And when you see me next
Will you stand on trial
Telling the jury of my innocence
Will you stand outside my cell
Reciting my favorite songs
Letting me remember how it felt to love
How it felt to live
Would you play me Cohen’s guitar stories
Or would you disappear to leave me dead
And hate me in the morning
Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye

Nobody ever came to me for words
So when you see me next
Just stand with me in silence
Die-in with me at the courthouse
Where we will divorce ourselves from the country
So maybe there is no hopelessness
Maybe there is only escape
So in my sad scared ski-masked life
When you see me next
Let’s run and never stop,
Let’s run and never stop.