Ghosts

There's a box up on the top shelf
I moved out of reach so many years ago
Filled with letters, filled with postcards
All the pieces of a time I used to know
I wonder if I took it down now
Would I find the things I'd hidden there inside?
Maybe I would find the ocean
A wave would rise and I'd be taken by the tide

They're not gone, they're not dead
They're still living in my head
Some I know, some I've never seen
And I don't know where I'm led
By what's living in my head
When I walk, I know what bends my knee
It has to be the ghosts in me

There's some ruins in the backyard
Someone built them there before we came around
We don't know what they were made for
We don't know what else is buried in the ground
Maybe if we tried to listen
Read the writing, learned the music to the songs
We might find what we've been missing
We might see what has been right there all along

They're not gone, they're not dead
They're still living in my head
Some I know, some I've never seen
And I don't know where I'm led
By what's living in my head
When I walk, I know what bends my knee
It has to be the ghosts in me

I saw a stranger on the front page
I heard voices saying he had done the crime
I saw a stranger on the sidewalk
I heard voices saying walk the other side
I saw a screaming politician
My own voice said he was right and they were wrong
I saw my lover in the kitchen
My own voice was saying I can't stay for long

They're not gone, they're not dead
They're still living in my head
Some I know, some I've never seen
And I don't know where I'm led
By what's living in my head
When I walk, I know what bends my knee
It has to be the ghosts in me