Kate Vargas

Lyrics

Blessed in bold, Flora in gray
Treasured in letters and aftershave
A curious clock and a sleepwalking memory
The one with the teeth, the one with the thread,
the one with psalms and the proverbs and God help me
yours strikes the chords I have heard once before, now I’m listening

I know you a dreamer
I know you were brave
but forever defined by what you’ve left behind
Oh my oh my oh Madeline

The waters had risen, the hunger grew mean
to leave, to break free, to see other things
They said, in New York, there’s a sixty story portal to the sky
Hawthorne and Melville and “Song of Myself”
oh how those words did settle and melt
sinking in thinning skin of the suitcase you packed all those years ago

I know you a thinker
I know you were awake
but forever defined by what you’ve left behind
Oh my oh my oh Madeline

I guess you could say it was one of those days and I had been feeling my mortality,
like what will be left and am I alright with that
You entered my brain by number, not name
and case at the start, but I knew it by heart
and I couldn’t shake your face out of my thoughts, it was hauntingly sharp

I know you resisted
I know were strong
but forever defined by what you’ve left behind Oh my oh my oh Madeline