We stopped and bought some mad dog off the highway near Savannah
And I had never been so drunk before
Seven naked bodies that the moonlight painted silver
Skin that shone like surf along the shore
I was on the verge of something, wild and riled and reeling
We thought ourselves the first, the pioneers of every feeling
The waves would rise and the laughter lines were fading from my hands
Like scripture in the sand

Another Boston spring, another pilgrimage to Florida
I left all my sober thoughts at home
You threw up in a wine glass at that party in Manhattan
We never knew when it was time to go
And whatever happened to whatever happens?
The tidal wave came fast and I was a fist of paper napkins
Standing over something I could scarcely understand
Scripture in the sand

You said it was my birthday when you got your diagnosis
So you made up some reason not to call
February second when I got you on the phone again
I watched my breath while you explained it all
And Tampa's 16 hours but I’m nowhere if not there
And we drove to the beach the day the nurse cut off your hair
And I thought maybe things are holier the less they can withstand
Like scripture in the sand

The day my youth ran out I was stirring pills in applesauce
Coming up with questions for the nurse
It's not as if I understand what it means to lose yourself
But I can hold the tissues to the hurt
I'm always back in Florida for some new god damned reason
The place that cut you loose
Shouldn't be the place that leaves you bleeding
But high tide always scatters all the lives that we have planned
They're scripture in the sand

A slice of sky reflected in the dog bowl at the drug store
I would also like to drink the sun
It's hard to ask for what you want, to stand on that desire
And wait there for a train that might not come
After dark I painted your initials on the overpass
But it got demolished, anybody could have told you that
And what's left of our lives, what mark is left upon the land?
We're scripture in the sand

I'm a textbook picture of the need to make a meaning
Out of every bird that flies away
Nostalgia's more reflection of the present then the past I guess
I just felt like feeling like shit today
But I wanna go down like one of your old vinyl records
So round that you can't see it turn and you don't know it's ending
So close that till it's gone you barely knew that it began
Like scripture in the sand