Don’t you underestimate us; we have lived here much longer than you know
Stack that woodpile in the corner, soaked in Bourbon it will burn right through the snow

Her flannel dangles on your shoulder, as your beard is growing older in the cold
You have loved so many others; you have shaken all the innocence you’ve stolen

Ready or not here I come to blank face stares at my shirt undone
Ready to run, but I can’t run, your mouth is wet, my chest is numb

The bird seed shells are black as raisons on the backdrop of the white December earth
And as you look out of your window, you become the person that you’ve always hurt

We’ve come so far in our deliverance, she says while digging through the drugstore in her purse
My halo’s sometimes rather crooked, I never tend to fear I’ve lived to see the worst

Ready or not here I come to blank face stares at my shirt undone
Ready to run, but I can’t run, your mouth is wet, my chest is numb

In the siren’s solitary whistle, the devil plays a contrapuntal jig for two
“Well, tell the truth like any other, but leave the part out where I cover up the truth”

A record scratches up the needle, the spotlight sizes up the center of the room
And there you stand with all your laundry, your clothes are dirty but my mind can see right through

Ready or not here I come to blank face stares at my shirt undone
Ready to run, but I can’t run, your mouth is wet, my chest is numb

Give us bread to wipe our faces, serve us wine to stain the places where we’ve been
I hear the mice jump under stove tops, round the pilot light to clear the crumbs I’ve left

Momma taught me how to hold you, how a woman wants the pillows on her bed
I wish our bodies never slept, I wish to Jesus that these thorns come off my head

Ready or not here I come to blank face stares at my shirt undone
Ready to run, but I can’t run, your mouth is wet, my chest is numb

Now the country is a monster, the combines rusting in an overgrow of mirth
Living hungry like mosquitoes, feeding on the backs of calves until they burst

The papers say I’ve killed a brother, but I was dead before the trigger shot him first
But everybody is forgotten, except the saints who pray each day for their re-birth

Ready or not here I come to blank face stares at my shirt undone
Ready to run, but I can’t run, your mouth is wet, my chest is numb