GLASS ANTS

[Verse 1]
He got the Dupont Circle haircut, that Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens green in his eyes,
Rockin' last season's suit jacket, a twenty-dollar tie full of twenty-dollar lies.
She’s tracing the water-ring left from his glass on the table top's cheap veneer,
He's talkin' 'bout futures and mergers, the only thing merging is all of her fear.
The fluorescent light is a scalpel, it's peeling the skin off the silence they built,
He got termites under the floorboards of every single new house that he pitched.
She nods like a puppet on frayed strings, her smile is a crack in the porcelain glaze,
Stuck in the amber of Monday, been stuck in it now for a hundred-odd days.

[Chorus]
The real words get stuck in your throat.
You swallow 'em down with the ice in your Coke.
Just say it.
Or don't.

[Verse 2]
I watch from the pass with a wet rag, the orders are stacked and the kitchen's a blaze,
See the heat from the grill make the air bend, reflecting the look of a similar daze.
He's checkin' his phone for the score now, she's pulling a thread from the cuff of her sleeve,
Like two glass ants in a jar lid, too perfect to touch and too fragile to leave.
She asked him "You hear that?"—the go-go that's bleeding from some car outside on the street,
He just shook his head, kept on scrolling, admitting a private, a quiet defeat.
She’s a wasp in a bottle, just waiting, that venom is patient, it's perfectly stored,
He's a moth to the glow of his lock screen, another connection completely ignored.

[Chorus]
The real words get stuck in your throat.
You swallow 'em down with the ice in your Coke.
Just say it.
Or don't.

[Bridge]
For a second, she looks right at me.
Past the smoke and the steam and the gravity.
And I see the whole damn story playin' out behind her stare,
Just hopin' for one honest word to hang in the air.

[Outro]
He pays with a card. They get up.
I'm wiping their table, cleaning it up.