Blacktop Velvet You drifted in fried beneath motel light Copper flame hair and your pupils wide Whole joint froze in a lowball hush Like everybody felt that velvet rush You wore that midnight like second skin Top-shelf grin with a burn within Palm fulla giggle smoke, silver spark Laugh cut slow through the cedar dark You said “Baby, I don’t sip, I float” Then let that rye ride soft in your throat And Lord The way you leaned on the barstool chrome Made every broke-down fool feel home Blue haze hanging like a backseat spell Cheap perfume and a wishing well Your cherry glow kissing the dim-lit room Like a slow train rolling toward doom You got that wet-mouth drawl and a sidewind sway That uptown sugar with a backroad fade Got me bent like a switchblade saint Off your hipbone scripture and your candy-paint Baby, you’re all long pour and slow-kick heat Half green queen, half wet concrete And every little thing falling off your tongue Runs three roads before it lands on one One for the headrush One for the sheets One for the sting underneath your teeth Girl, you move like a late-night lean Blacktop velvet Gasoline dream You sparked that hush-hush with a gambler’s grace Left ghost rings floating where your lips once traced And the room stayed tipped at a crooked slant Like your shadow had us all half-tranced You said “Everybody’s chasing white lines somehow” Could’ve meant highways Could’ve meant powder Could’ve meant right now Then your boot slid slow up against my chair Like a quiet little crime beneath the air Outside, rain danced hard on the taxi roofs Inside, you moved like eighty-proof truth Velvet vice in a hotel glow Making bad decisions feel holy slow That jukebox moaned like a busted vein Your laugh rolled low through my ribcage rain And every drag hanging off your kiss Felt just shy of a hit-or-miss You got that wet-mouth drawl and a sidewind sway That uptown sugar with a backroad fade Got me bent like a switchblade saint Off your hipbone scripture and your candy-paint Baby, you’re all long pour and slow-kick heat Half green queen, half wet concrete And every little thing falling off your tongue Runs three roads before it lands on one One for the headrush One for the sheets One for the sting underneath your teeth Girl, you move like a late-night lean Blacktop velvet Gasoline dream Ashtray sky and a hotel grin We were two burnt matches caving in You whispered “Everybody needs a little flight” Could’ve meant smoke Could’ve meant stars Could’ve meant me that night And the ice kept dying in the amber glow While your fingers worked me painfully slow Like you knew every wrecking word by name And every one of mine tasted the same Baby, keep that neon heartbeat lit Keep that downtown honey on your fingertips You’re the kind of beautiful that leaves a stain Like lipstick heat on a windowpane Three meanings dangling off your smile One for the thrill One for denial One for the way you ruin me in style Girl, you move like smoke through broken beams Blacktop velvet My gasoline dream
