I left home ‘cause there were voices whispering among the bricksnSometimes I’d beg outside the abbatoir or sometimes I’d turn tricksnI found this shack in the woods and I’ve been living there since springnI still hear voices in the trees but I know it’s mostly just the windnnAnother John just left and I’m tidying up the mess,nHe said, “I guess there’s no way you take American Express?†nIt’s my martyrdom among rumpled sheets,nOutside it’s not exactly dark, more like daylight in frightened retreatnnI’m washed up here in Lola’s Lunchbox but I guess I should go home,n‘Cause there’s ratshit on the floorboards of my heart, the coffee tastes like shaving-foam.nI’ve got a cockroach for a landlord, I’m in arrears, I think it’s time I left this town,nAnd the girls at the next table are talking tit jobs, it all just brings me down, nSo I take the road that leads right by the wood,nAnd my head hurts so bad I’d tear my brain out if I could,nThere’s a woman standing in a field with a bow in her hair,nAnd her lips are moving like she’s whispering some kind of prayernnHe started calling every day, at first we’d barely speak at allnShe’d pinned up pictures of medieval saints all around the wallsnI’d pretend I was asleep as I’d hear him stumble innShe’s like a Renaissance courtesan sleeping off the gin nAnd by the hawthorn hedge with the signpost peeping throughnWith two crooked arms and no names to point you tonAnd as the rain tinkled in the branches overheadn“How can you stand to let those scumbags touch you?†he said.nnI watch the headlights frisk the trees as she tempts them up the lanenIt’s like the gods guide my knife, I doubt they ever feel much painnThen we go through their stuff and help ourselves to what we neednThen drag them to the riverbank and lay them down among the reedsnnThe wind sings and the rain on the roof beats timenAnd he laughed and said we’re like the Sonny & Cher of crimenThen he smiled like the gargoyle on the graveyard gatesnAnd he pulled on my ponytailnAnd I’m almost afraid to exhale,n‘Cause a breath can be like a nailbomb to a fairy tale