the other half

Hamilton Leithauser

I could hear your knuckles on the walnut boards
Of the kitchen island through the pocket doors
But my heart snapped over like a plastic fork
When your name kept dropping in the tapping rain storm

Fifteen years and you're just a stranger
I never pictured an ending like it

There's a figure on the tv
In the blizzard waving back at me
Like a spirit of an old forgotten friend

If that was only half of it
The other half lives on
The lightning ripping in
A fierce summer storm

Fifteen years and you're almost good as gone

Now the mice are squeakin'
And the floorboards keep creakin'
And I don't have the strength to quiet 'em any more
I just sit and stare, I just sit and stare

Behind the window bars
The other half lives on