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Running the Lines

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Running the Lines

© 2019 Chris Goering (BMI) and Aaron Traffas (BMI)

I scribble similes on notepads while I’m holding the wheel
My pen bounces with potholes but my nerves are cold as steel
Books on tape and the left front tire are all wearing too thin
Like my new ideas and apologies and the fifth of gin

Between the lines I’m running the lines that swirl in my mind
Double yellow dotted white while I’m chasing down the rhymes
If I take too long you’re going to leave, so I’m pulling these words around
I can’t tell if it’s my engine or my heart that’s making this sound

Running the lines on the highway
Working to get back home to you
Running the lines in my notebook
To make these miles make sense too
Trapped on a blacktop purgatory
That the only reason I’m out here is for you and me
I’m just trying to get back home to you and me

I’ll read the braille of the rumble strips when the snow gets too deep
I pray to the rhyming dictionary my soul to keep
White knuckles and diesel smoke, broken down in a panic and a rush
The swirling lines in my head start to straighten, and the noise begins to hush

In the back of an old log book I keep a list of long lost lovers
I add your name and throw it back in the sleeper and start to recover
I just love to see the country flying by me
Man, I just love to see the country flying by me

I’m running the lines on the highway
Turns out they lead away from you
I’m running my lines in my notebook
To make these miles make sense too
Now I’m free of my blacktop purgatory
the only reason I’m out here is for me
I’m running my lines to get back to me
I’m running the lines to get back to me