Beth's Music: Means To This End

Means To This End

Pulled off from the inside lane
caught off guard by Iowa's blinding rain
and Illinois is still four hours past,
but I'm tired at last.
I drive a car that's not even mine
paranoid to the point that I'm checking the oil all the time
and the world gets bigger by the day
and no one guarantees that it's ever going to be safe.
I bite down hard against this moonlight
because it will lull me out and lay me flat in this blue night.
I keep my eye on the road ahead,
keep in mind the last words that you said.

"Your past is on the table where you're eating
it's on the pillow where ever your sleeping
behind your eyelids when you close them
behind the doorways you know
that it will always fill your plate
and it will leave you with a sweet, sweet taste.
A reminder of home."

Truckers flash their high beams as I pass them at 75,
give me the once over at rest stops, coffee shops and highway dives,
say, "Where you going all alone? Imagine that, a girl like you
calling the road some kind of home."
I just nod and tip up my cup
drink the coffee the waitress brings till I think I've had just enough
to get me further down a ways past the Peterbilts,
Mercedes, Kenworths, and American made Great Danes.

And if it were all the same I'd get right back up and I'd do it again
and I'd try not to break before I bend
and all of the miles I've tasted face down on the asphalt
flat out wasted were all a means to this end.
Ending at home.

Met him on my way back on the Indiana thoroughfare
On his way to California moving his life in a truck out there
Said his past was chasing him down and change was as good
as any maudlin, sentimental drunk he'd found.
I just smiled and tipped up my cup
I didn't get his whole name but I wished him good luck
said I know where you're from cause I spent a life time living there
looking back on the things I could have done
on and on and on

And if it were all the same I would get right back up and I would do it again
and I'd try not to break before I bend
and all of the miles I've tasted face down on the asphalt
flat out wasted were all a means to this ending
they were all a means to this ending
they were all a means to this end.
Ending at home.

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