There's a clearing behind her mother's house
The other side of Silver Creek
We'd drink cheap cherry vodka there late at night
Her dog Lobo at our feet
Yeah, Crystal was younger than me, but much tougher
With a dark smile on her lips
She looked so pretty laughing in my puckered face
When I pulled up her skirt a bit
Lobo took off, she said, "You catch that hound, I'm yours"
So I ran
Through the trees
Chasing sounds
Deep into the darkness
Then I fled, took Crystal to her room
Turned off all the lights
I closed the curtains to the sickle moon
Said, "There's a strange man outside
He was out there swatting lightning bugs
On his greasy face and body
Through streaks of glowing green
His pig-face grinning mean"
Her smile
Fell away
And she said
"Thought I was going crazy
I've seen him too
And I can't take it anymore
I can't take it
Every night, I see him in the window
Those big pale eyes"
I stole a machete
Hacked up small animals for practice
Even when I found Lobo tied in a knot
No one believed us
Weeks later, I was patrolling the woods
Red lights flashing through the branches
I dropped the machete, ran to her house
And saw two cop cars and an ambulance
Lightning bugs glowing in the breeze
And I fell to my knees
It's been years now, I moved to the city
To get lost in the trash like one of many fruit flies
And I found my wife Claire
So full of life, so wild, with a smile beyond compare
And our first child is kicking strong inside her
But sometimes I swear
I look at her face, and I see Crystal hiding in there
The way her lips pout when she's brushing her hair
I see her everywhere, yeah
I tried my best to lose her
How I got lost in bars, spilling into streets, too drunk to dream
Can't dream or I'll see him choking Crystal with her sheets
And grinning mean
Now it seems like violence is a mist
Slowly creeping from the past
And I can't help but feel he's coming back for me
Just last week
An old machete was found lodged in some young cop's gut
Right on our street
Where I could hear him suffering
And I recalled a possum
Still trying to run, though I'd cut its head clean off
Same as me, I thought
Fleeing home when I knew damn well he'd never stop
'Cause I saw those eyes
And tonight, as I patrolled the halls
Checking all the windows, I saw
The green glow of a lightning bug
Kissed Claire's sleeping lips and grabbed my gun, yeah
Not gonna run