Benchmark

There’s a bar on the corner of Davie and Seymour
and it stands there defiant, though dormant and boarded
Dark on the inside and dust on the floor
It doesn’t let anyone in anymore

The drinks used to flow; the band used to play
Bass beats used to rattle the rafters
“Can I get you a drink?”, the cute boys would say
to girls brave in the name of happy ever after

Now the air hangs quiet on that empty dance floor
No souls seeking soulmates in there anymore
Signage in tatters, and nothing is healing
Rusty and shattered; guess I know the feeling

I used to craft love letters from my phone
Pruning my prose, just so you’d love the sound
Mornings punctuated with good grips and moans
Stay up all night just to slow burn it down

Now my heart beats calloused from fights I put up
Frozen and numbed from cold-blooded love
My eyes are weary from looking for signs
Hands tired from praying I could trust you this time

Now my pillow smells of no one’s cologne
The shirts I wear to bed are my own
I run wild, untethered, wherever I roam
Never quite feeling I’ve found my way home

And all the infrastructure’s still here
I could fall in love in five seconds, I swear
If only I didn’t live each day in fear
I’ll find another you hiding in there

Was it par for the course when lies coursed through your veins?
When you set a new standard for causing me pain?
When my touchstone touched someone not me
and weaved an index for how crushed I could be?

If your goal was to make sure I never forgot you
Or forgot that day we rode bikes and I caught you
If your aim was to turn betrayal into an art
I hope you know that you set that benchmark

And I know music will play in that old bar again one day
Even the most broken cities rebuild somehow, some way
And one day when I can say I lived to see the dusk refrain
I hope you know that it’ll never be the same