Loose leaves

there are stories in the soil, loose leaves cover the ground
there's volumes in the forest, no one reads out loud
if i could take them down off of that mountain shelf
we used to climb but no one tries to go up that far now yeah

we're all too busy working, entertaining ourselves
forty hours television and prescription pills
well i take two a day to make my brain behave
it never does but who's to say at least my doctor gets paid

so that's fine, yeah come by we'll take the afternoon off
we can kiss and undress or if you want just talk
cause i've got nothing real, just empty space to fill
and you're my girl i like your style just imagine all the time we could kill

and time's not poison but once you drink it all you'll die
so let's just sip it real slow
yeah we can nurse it all night
try to believe that once it's gone
we'll pour another round and come back to life
come right back

i guess i'm moving faster now or that's what they said
and though some days still take forever i can't disagree
because it seems to me that i wake up and sleep
look in the mirror have no idea what happened in between

but i remember counting days down 'til the year could be done
so i could scatter all my notebooks on the prep school lawn
and disappear again into a summer's bliss
of staying out sleeping in and getting drunk with my friends

that's gone and i know that it won't ever come back
i accept i won't cling to what i had in the past
but life's a slippery slope, regret's the steepest hill
hope for the best, plan for the worst and maybe wind up somewhere
in the middle

and i'm not saying that i know what i want
but i know what i don't, don't want to rot in my room
and never know what could have been
believe what everyone else tells me is true
yeah, they say 'true'
that's what they say