Rebecca’s Elegy

Lyrics

Some nights I think about Rebecca
That potholed road she grew up on
Her black hair knife-cut to her jawline
Her clothes were small and weather-worn

She loved a cold strawberry milkshake
We’d walk for days out in the sun
Humming tunes, our little home town blues
Or whatever the radio had on

These memories
Play on repeat
Like a ceaseless elegy

At night she’d slip out through the window
And eavesdrop as the neighbors talked
Their sober voices like a ballad
Like songs she could float away on

She’d tell me things nobody knew of
And made me promise not to tell
I never felt so close with anyone
Never knew somebody so well

These memories
Play on repeat
Like a ceaseless elegy

One night in June I missed her phone call
And she sped off in her mother’s car
Burned all the Newports in the glove box
They found her cold behind the barn

Some nights I think about Rebecca
And rewrite how her story ends
I reach the phone, she heads back home
and we grow to be old friends

And I never need
these memories
Or write this elegy

These memories
Play on repeat
Like a ceaseless elegy