Loud Until the Lip

Heard the thunder miles back but I liked the way it sounded

Took it for applause, took it for a drum

The old maps had their warnings, I just worked my way around them

Figured fear was just for those who couldn't run

What they couldn't see from shore

Was how smooth I made it look

Every bend I'd beaten before

Was another page I wrote in my own book

And the river loved me, or so I mistook

The current for a gift instead of hook

Now the water's moving faster than my paddle can correct

And the roar's not applause, it's something I should have checked

I'm scanning for the eddy, for the out, for the line

But the banks are pulling back like they've resigned

Funny thing

The guys who tried to warn me spoke so soft

I thought quiet meant unsure

Thought my volume meant I knew more

Now I'd give anything to be back at the put-in

Boring and obscure

Here's the lip

Here's the glass where the water goes flat

That one still second where you see it all

How the current was never yours to read

How the river let you lead

Just long enough to fall

I know everything now

In this one useless instant

I know the name of every rock below

I know the angle and the distance

I know exactly how little I know

And the loudest thing

Is everything I didn't say

When saying it

Might have made me turn away

If I surface

If the water spits me out

I'll be the quiet one

The one who doesn't shout

Not because I broke

But because I finally learned the joke

Mastery is just the weight

Of every time you should have spoke

And didn't

And the ones still floating toward the edge

Can't hear you

Over the sound

Of how certain they are