Grace - Sage Francis

Patience is a virtue, virtue is a grace

Grace is a little girl who wouldn’t wash her face

Grace is a virtue, virtue is a mean

Between two extremes, one of excess, one of deficiencies

Patience is a virtue, virtue is a dirty stain

Cleanliness is next to godliness and isn’t worth the pain

Grace is a virtue, virtue of the pageant

And this is not a love ballad

You suggested Lithium to get me better again

That is unless if we, uhm, get together again

But that ain’t gonna happen, never again

Send my well wishes to your nutritionist

Your dietician, your pharmacist

Your personal trainer and your accomplices

Your partners in thought crime

Your criminal groupthink and doctors online

There is a difference between what is and isn’t

Business and friendship

Parental assistance and an assistant

A permanent solution and a quick-fix

A fit body and sound mind

A hundred hour weeks and dangerous amounts of downtime

You got a lot to offer, but you’re not an author

If I kill your persecution complex that don’t make you a martyr

Drop the styrofoam cross, you can’t walk on water

You could use it for floatation, not a flying saucer

You suggested professional help like I wasn’t mentally well

What I was feeling wasn’t meant to be felt

Duly noted, you’ll be quoted in the eulogy

It’ll be passed off as poetry, between you and me

I know you know the difference between confession and conjecture

Prosody and needing to be lectured to a meter

The student becomes the teacher, the son becomes a parent

From a scab to teamster, the sun becomes apparent

From a chemical imbalance to a litany of habits

And this is not a love ballad

You should drown me in that womanhood or teach me how to swim

Beat me with my own hands or tie down my limbs

Suffer for my sins or let me suffer from within

But in the end this is not a love ballad

We can battle with tattoos to cover up the bruises

The first to show any sign of discomfort loses

For the first time in a long time you’re not who my muse is

And this is not a love ballad

I’m not thirsty, I just got hungry eyes and you look appetizing

From a distant stare, broken eye contact in disrepair

Sometimes I disappear.

Oh, now you see me?

I’m part Irish Goodbye, other part Harry Houdini

Put my feet to the fire, I’ve got Satan on my heels

If it’s all about prestige, just wait for the reveal

I’ve got a new bag of tricks to turn, a new black magic woman witch to burn

So much for live and learn

Patience is a virtue, virtue is a grace

Grace is a little girl who wouldn’t wash her face

Grace is a virtue, virtue is a mean

Between two extremes, one of excess, one of deficiencies

Patience is a virtue, virtue is a dirty stain

Cleanliness is next to godliness and isn’t worth the pain

Grace is a virtue, virtue of the pageant

And this is not a love ballad

It’s a music box that haunts me from the top-shelf of the bedroom closet

I don’t touch it, it just cuddles with my conscience

I’m on constant guard, jittery the whole night

Clinging to sheets because it sings to me slow-like

And that’s her song running through an hourglass

Built with two wine bottles that I found in a flower patch

Planted in quicksand, refusing to sink fast

Abusing me slow, I hear the music and I think back

Before the fall, before the set up

Before the interest in sex even developed

I fell in love with distance, it’s an ex’s best friend

There used to be revenge, but I couldn’t see no end

So I had to switch the lens and then focus on some flesh

No more clinging to old threads