Too dangerous to keep
Too feeble to let go
And you want to bite the hand
Should have stopped this long ago
They had been playing the thin line between love and hate for nearly a decade. It always followed the same pattern. Everything would start with the eggs being served sunny side up. Then they would begin to doubt the nature of those eggs. There was deceit and there was a breakdown of trust. He would find himself playing with other girls and she would lose her job and become irritated with the nature of everything in her life. They would start throwing insults and curse words at each other. Eventually words would not be enough and objects would be hurled.
His friends and family hated her. They would not so much as speak to her. So many times she had left him high and dry, crying in his beer. So many times everything would go wrong. She always took the brunt of the blame because her deeds were more obvious to the naked eye. She insulted him publicly. She borrowed money she never intended to repay. She would leave on the night train to home and he would be reduced to a quivering pile of flesh on the living room floor.
Had you coiled around my arm
How could you ever know
How I loved your diamond eyes
But that was long ago
The key difference was that he was always repentant. She never offered apologies or sought forgiveness. The past was made up of wreckage from her wake that she did not care to recognize. She never took responsibility for anything she did and yet felt other people owed her the apologies. Her life was too hard. Her life was all that mattered. She honestly did not care who hated her except to give the reasons why she did not care.
The patterns of life repeat forever until we break them. Eventually we are reduced to a skipping record and no one wants to listen any longer. If you continue the patterns you lose track of your position on the road. The shadows begin to resemble figures in the light. You never find anything other than the endless story of sorrow already experienced that you are unwilling to give up. You let it happen to yourself again and again. Never blame the one who hurts you when you willingly run to the trough to feed again.
Lyrics samples from Lyrics copyright Steve Kilbey and The Church
"Reptile"
As originally appeared on the album Starfish
Copyright 1988 The Church.