Call This Glory

Drive down a road with me
See if you can see where the street signs are
This whole fucking place
Doesn't have a name
It's a street with no sign
So how can you find it?

I'm living in Hell
With twenty-four hour McDonald's
But only the drive-thru window

What's the point of that?

I need to see who's giving me
My fries

I need to see that they're not poisoning it
With toxic intentions

I need human contact at three in the morning
Even if it is with a girl
Wearing a golden arches pin

Do you know
That at one point in my life
I considered dating someone
Who was attending an Ivy League school
A sign of success?

Fuck three girls from Yale
Then let me know
How successful you feel

Fuck them on their unfinished term papers
Fuck them on their disposable couches
Fuck them on their townie towel
That they put out just for you

Then tell me
How high you can fly

Ok?

I had a girl tell me
She wanted to have my baby
And I told her
That she could have my keychain
But not my baby

My baby will come out
Covered in disdain
And wrapped up
In muddled ambition

Why would you want all that
Tied up inside of you?
Entangled like the ivy
Covering up your dorm?

I remember creeping out
Late at night
And running through the campus
Imagining the sprinklers coming on
And soaking me
Like a dirty child

Instead I lost my breath
And I laid down
In front of a bench
That was dedicated
To the brave men and women of Yale
Who didn't go to fight in any wars
Because their parents bought them golden tickets
To the land of milk and pre-law

I didn't want to lay on that bench
That bench was a sitting place
For the weak and academic

I was a visceral creature of the night
Smelling like expensive perfume
And cheap fast food
And I wanted to fuck a town girl
Right then and there
Right on that freshly mowed lawn

Instead I ripped up the grass
Hoping to see the dirt
The hidden messiness
Underneath all this pristine glory

Glory
Yeah, glory

All I could think was--

They call this glory?

I stripped off my shirt
And I tied it around my waist
And I walked back to town
Looking like a cross
Between a hitchhiker
And a prophet

When I got to my old bar
Where the wall still had the indentations
Of my knuckles on it

I stopped

My girl came out
Still wiping her hands
Getting them dirty with new dirt
On a raggedy dish towel

Looking at me
Knowing I was ashamed
Ashamed to call her my girl

You want to know guilt?

Look at the purest heart you can find
Look deep into it
Past the apron and the hair bun
Look right at it
And say--

'I'm ashamed of you'
'I think I'm better than you'
'I just played in traffic to see if it would make me a man'

She looked at me
And loved me anyway
In spite of my desire
To rub off on nickels

Told me to come in
Said she'd give me some fries

I told you I like my fries
With a human touch

And her fries?
Man, they're good

They're beyond good

They're glory