Gladiola How Could You, James? lyrics

Green grass growing under last year's leaves
And every thought of you feels like a disease
But I'm stuck to you, stuck here with this name
The silence at the courthouse was profane
How could you, James?

Telegraph clacks of skateboard wheels
Send a message to the future, it's a humble appeal:
“The past is always primitive, and you'll slip through the same.”
Somewhere a teacher wonders how you could have been reclaimed
How could you, James?

You went away
Something bigger than yourself, something bigger than yourself
Was all you could say
Almost three years in the desert

And you brought it home

And you plugged into the American life
That's bathed in the parking lot's sodium light
Bottled and tweaked like the drinks for sale inside
I told you, I told you, you wouldn't come back the same
How could you, James?

Two kids who grew up in a neighboring town
What could they have said to make you cut ‘em down
On a Sunday night, with a broom-swept sky in flames
One of them was on the phone with his mom when the ambulance came