La Dispute - 35 lyrics

Drivers out on the bridge
Slowing down as they go through a lane shift
Wires snap concrete gives
Metal twisting and everything tumbling

At the end of the work day
Stuck in traffic don’t feel
When the road sways underneath
Concrete gives metal twisting and
Everything tumbling
To their partners and kids
Don’t suspect anything till
The bridge split's wires snap
Concrete gives metal twisting and
Everything tumbling down

Where I sat I saw brake lights flash
And I pictured them: all the people
Their faces in free fall, the water beneath
I pushed my palms against the table
Hard to see if it hurt
Were it glass would I have shattered it?
Could I battle every impulse to
Panic and then win
Swim out through the metal twisting
Upward like a sculpture
Or some terrible beast?

People trapped in their cars
Put both feet on the glass and then kick hard
Water pours in seatbelts twist
River flowing and everything going down

People under the water line
Workers sift through the wreckage of it find
Seatbelts stuck water fills up
River flowing and
Everything going downstream
On the dining room wall I watched it
Play in the reflection of the television
The reversal in the mirror hung
I could see it all
How the dust clouds gather color
As they billow out
Shades change shifting in the night
From the lights atop an ambulance
Like a firework’s flash then
That otherworldly glow
In the smoke thrown in the aftermath blows
Almost frozen for a moment there
I could see it all

Every dust cloud
Shattered glass billow out
On the TV wires snap and the
Concrete gives metal twists up and onward
I can see it all every
Dust cloud shattered glass
Billow out on the TV
Wires snap and the concrete gives in
Metal twists up and onward I watch
And I can see it all all the wreckage
All the cars piled in the river and
The rail yard metal twists
Wires snap concrete blocks split
Dangle from tie rods and metal twists up
Wires sway when a breeze blows
In the distant sirens glow
I can see it all
Where they look for survivors
Searchlights float
Change the color of smoke clouds
And shadows still fall
People under the water
People trapped in their cars kick
And try to get out
People still with their seat belts on
Pets they had in the back and car seats

And I watch it on TV lying down here
On the floor in the dining
Room reversed in the mirror
Where I know I’m not dreaming now
But, I know I’ve been sleeping
I just don’t know since when
I only know that it’s light outside
I only know that the rent is still late
When did they find out the concrete gave?
When did they learn that the wires snapped?