The Story Is Everything - Piles of Used to Be Lyrics

Fourteen years ago today
To say she remembered it well would be a lie
A blur of newscast speculation
There was just no way the water rose that high
She had fled in a haze
And in the following days she slowly understood
That the way to quell the rumors was to sneak past the barricades
As soon as she could
To a scene from Eliot's "Waste Land"
A heap of broken images
Where the sun beat and the dead trees
Gave no shelter
A scene from Eliot's "Waste Land"
Fear in a handful of dust
That coated everything beneath the water line
Unreal city
And the piles of used-to-be
Where the dead men lost their bones
Among rotten wood and stones
Stands a scavenger left plundering
And wandering through a life undone
Out of the window
Perilously spread her drying combinations
Touched by sun's last rays
Photographs and swollen books beyond restoration
And when you look into her eyes
You see the saddest story
That has ever been told before
Of a city's season of despair
An 'X' and numbers spray-painted across her door
In a scene from Eliot's "Waste Land"
A heap of broken images
Where the sun beat and the dead trees
Gave no shelter
A scene from Eliot's "Waste Land"
Fear in a handful of dust
That coated everything beneath the water line
Unreal city
And the piles of used-to-be
Where the dead men lost their bones
Among rotten wood and stones
Stands a scavenger left plundering
And wandering through a life undone
Sorting through the piles of used-to-be