The alarm starts screaming at five-fifteen The garbage truck answers outside The upstairs neighbors are fighting again While the pipes knock time in the walls My phone keeps ringing from numbers I’ve blocked They all want money I ain’t got I pull on yesterday’s work clothes And leave without saying goodbye The highway growls all the way into town The factory rattles my bones Twelve hours under fluorescent lights With a foreman who won’t leave me alone By quitting time, my ears are ringing My hands won’t loosen their grip I sit in the truck with the engine off Too tired to make myself leave Everything’s loud but us The highway and the heat The television arguing The pipes beneath our feet We don’t say “I love you” We don’t even cuss The whole damn world won’t shut its mouth But everything’s quiet between us Your name is written on half the groceries Mine on the other side We keep our money in separate accounts And sleep with our backs divided You take the bedroom, I take the couch We pass in the kitchen at night Like two worn-out strangers renting a house Neither one can afford by themselves The rent went up, the truck broke down The power bill came stamped red We put off the dentist, cancel the doctor And pray nothing else goes bad There’s never enough at the end of the month Just numbers we move around Borrow from one to pay another And keep our heads above going down Everything’s loud but us The highway and the heat The television arguing The pipes beneath our feet We don’t say “I love you” We don’t even cuss The whole damn world won’t shut its mouth But everything’s quiet between us If I had the money, I might leave If you had somewhere, you’d go But leaving costs more than staying here So we leave each other alone There wasn’t one night that ended it No suitcase by the door Love just got tired of working overtime For something it couldn’t afford The television talks till morning Though neither of us watches it now We need the noise to fill up the rooms And cover what we don’t talk about Tomorrow will sound like today did Alarms, machines, and phones Then I’ll come back to this crowded house And we’ll both be here alone Everything’s loud but us The highway and the heat The television arguing The pipes beneath our feet We don’t say “I love you” There ain’t enough left to discuss The whole damn world won’t shut its mouth But everything’s quiet between us
