Turning Lane

You thought you could free the slaves
By filling out the proper paperwork
'Till you turned out all your pockets
And realized they never were
You pulled your kids out of the public school
And resigned to your irreverence
And you set a torch to the old duck blind
Where your heartache took up residence
You were all dressed up, but you didn't know what
All the commotion inside you was for
What did we expect after all that shame?
Some familiar stretch of crippling faith?
What did we expect after all that fear?
Some inheritance to make the past run clear?
Thought we could concentrate
Just hard enough to let those feelings in
We were both stuck in the turning lane
But that's where we've always been
I guess we took our love in one big dose
And retired to the peasantry
Saying: paradise exists
But it is locked away inside our memories
You couldn't sit still, not while you knew well
That all the commotion was held in your name
What did we expect after all that shame?
Some familiar stretch of crippling faith?
What did we expect after all that fear?
Some inheritance to make the past run clear?
--
We could see a castle
Two-thousand people set fire to a six storey hotel
And watched firefighters put it out
Spewing ladders to rescue actors from buildings
And catch them in nets
As they made panicked leaps from fourth storey windows
So they could make panicked leaps tomorrow
And the next day, and the next time, and the next