You're driving
It's just after midnight, and pavement fades to dirt roads, cast grey by your high beams
And in a flash you see me: I'm waving to you so hopefully
"I'm so drowsy and I was hoping that you could drop me off at the stone house
That's over just two more hills
I've got to get home before my parents start worrying for me."

Between the kindness of strangers and the rumble of the road
There's a slow kind of remembering that takes years to unfold
Its in the dahlias by the ditches and the backseat of a car
Yes I am grateful to the strangers who have taken me this far

And as the trees soaked with starlight in time
Are replaced by endless crosses suspending electrical arteries
And streetlights and billboards for cigarettes, I say, "We're almost there."
You glance in your rearview and see just how filthy I have gotten from walking in darkness
Since God knows when
And turning you look to the house now ablaze in yellow glare

So you step out to open my door and to wish me well
It's freezing; yes it's absolutely as cold as hell
And red glowing hazard lights blink like clock out of synch
Are you all alone now?
Where could I have run off to so quickly?
A knock on my parents' door, a knowing sigh
My father will ask you inside
Ask you if the one to whom you had given my ride was all dirty pale and quiet with racehorse's eyes
'Cause you know that I've been gone since 1995
And you're not the first to try
(But I'm still alive)

Between the kindness of strangers and the rumble of the road
There's a slow kind of remembering that takes years to unfold
Its in the dahlias by the ditches and the backseat of a car
Yes I am grateful to the strangers who have taken me this far
Yes I am grateful to the strangers who have taken me