Loyalty

Well you called me
Telephone ringing in the night
And you asked me if I was alright
Like an afterthought, an oversight

And I stood so surprised
Trying to hold on to my pride
So close I could hear your low sigh
I said I was fine, you said you were fine

There’s a loneliness, I don’t lose sight of it
Like a high distant satellite
One side in shadow, one in light
But I didn’t mind to be alone that night in a city I’d never seen

All these skyscrapers pooling on a prairie
Built high and tall, as though they all compete
Just to reach the darkness up above
That once here had been

Somewhere if there’s a beauty you had seen in me
That I wanted somehow to believe
Drift of sentiment and memory
That I could not have, I could not keep

No, it never did belong to me
It was only ever another thing I would carry
Still it held me, loyalty, to a feeling, to some glimpse
Of a love that was only ever a kind of distance that we could not cross
“Gather no moss”