One of One 6:05

They taught the glass to wear your face —
the loop, the lean, the way you break a line
A row of mouths all open the same
on borrowed air, on borrowed air

Two hundred candles, one stolen flame
trace the print, then file away the name
It isn’t the polish that gives it away
it’s the room behind the door
dark all the same

You can’t forge a spine
can’t print the weather off a man
Three lines deep I feel the draft
through the crack in the counterfeit hand
The shape stayed
the shape stayed lit —
and the thing underneath it walked

Na na na, na-na-na-na
(on borrowed air)
Na na na, na-na-na-na

Collection plate behind a velvet rope
they sell you back the floor and call it sky
Confession dressed as gospel, charged by the hour
one in a hundred, swears that’s where you’ll rise

Run the river over till it’s smooth
no stone, no snag, no thumbprint in the groove
It isn’t the polish that gives it away
it’s the nothing in the current
clean all the same

You can’t forge a spine
can’t print the weather off a man
Three lines deep I feel the draft
through the crack in the counterfeit hand
The shape stayed
the shape stayed lit —
and the thing underneath it walked

Na na na, na-na-na-na
(on borrowed air)
Na na na, na-na-na-na

Na na na, na-na-na-na
Na na na, na-na-na-na
(on borrowed air)
Na na na, na-na-na-na
There was a man who was his own weather —
you can’t sing him down into the storm
Na na na, na-na-na-na
(only ever one)
Na na na, na-na-na-na
(only ever one of one)

You can’t forge a spine
can’t fake the gravity of a name
Three lines deep the lights are on —
is anybody home, or just the frame
The shape stayed
the shape stayed lit
and the thing it stood in for walked out
(Na na na, na-na-na-na... out)