1. |
If You Were Paper
02:49
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If you were paper, I’d be your Paper Mate, gliding down the lines you defined but telling you what’s on my mind. And if I made a mistake, I would not hesitate. If I waste time crossing myself out I’ll never make it to your next page. I wanna get things wrong with you. Don’t have much choice at this point so I’d might as well see it through. Cause how wrong can it really be? We’ve got our whole lives to wait and see.
Furthermore, if you were paper, that guy’s a paperweight. You wanna fly all around the world but you’re not going anyplace. He wants to hold you; you think you might want the same. I just want to lift him right up off you and fold you into a plane. I wanna get things wrong with you. Don’t have much choice at this point so I’d might as well see it through. Cause how wrong can it really be, if with me or without me you’re free?
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2. |
Hall Pass
03:40
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I get here early every day, hoping that this time things might break my way. I take the seat you made me take, next to the girl who never has anything to say. And then I watch you putting lessons on the wall, and then I hear you trying to make sense of it all. I wanna ask you if you think I’m just a clown, but I’ll go to the bathroom, get a drink, and walk around.
I ain’t learning nothing in this class. Can I please get the hall pass? All I need’s for you to call on me. I’d gladly accept that apology.
I got sent to the social worker because I’ve got a habit of speaking when others are trying to speak. And now I think I’ll get myself a referral because I left the building seeking what she told me to seek. I went to Manhattan where the towers shine like gold, and I thought of your classroom, where my chair sits empty and cold. What was it I wanted as the 5 went rattling down the tracks? When I absconded, did you notice that I never came back?
I ain’t learning nothing in this class. Can I please get the hall pass? All I need’s for you to call on me. I’d gladly accept that apology.
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3. |
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Who doesn’t have an office crush? The one they always take to lunch? The one they noticed right away, the one they’re with ten hours a day, the one they find they long to touch? Someone who hears the arguments while pretending to file documents, who hears exactly what you say, who tells you it will be okay over a stairwell cigarette?
So one night they tell us all Tim from production’s moving on. They’re having drinks at six, I know who I’ll be drinking with. We’ll be there till the last call. And then we’ll stand outside the bar. The streets aren’t lit up like we are. I kiss your cheek but seem to slip and meet the corner of your lips, and you climb silent into the car.
Let’s not and say we did. Won’t need forgiveness for our sins, we’ll be completely innocent, if we just don’t and say we did.
It was the best night of my life. All of the stars must have been aligned. As you undressed before the blinds, the lonely streetlamp shined behind, binding you in bands of light. You always wondered what I’d do if you suggested a rendezvous. And as I take the fateful trip across this room into your grip, I think that I have answered you.
And then we curl into our dreams, and I will have a fitful sleep. I dream not of what I need, I dream not of what I seek, I dream of what I failed to keep.
Let’s not and say we did. There is no state that’s permanent, but let’s not break up our lives yet, we can have a night we won’t regret, we can have a night we won’t forget. We can still warmly dream of it if we just don’t and say we did. If we just don’t and say we did.
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4. |
Glass of Water
04:26
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Glass of water, can you tell me where I am? I’m sick and tired and still wired at 6:30 a.m. It’s not so serious, Soterios, can you please give it and me a rest? Without fail you hang a veil on me before I can even get dressed. Socks and shoes and fallen wallet form a pathway down through the cave. The Tylenol’s expired, better take a couple extra to be safe. Don’t know what I did but in the shower promised God I’d repent. And I don’t know if he heard me and I don’t know if I knew what I meant.
I was so tight, I can’t remember a thing from last night. I apologize for the last time in my life.
Glass of lager, can you tell me where I might be? Twelve hours have passed and you’re the last thing that laid eyes on me. Who’d I call, who’d I kiss, did I brawl, where’d I piss? It’s all written in your mist, it’s all hidden in your fizz. Ask the bartender for change, a little later ask her name. Five dollars down the drain of the jukebox, twenty plays, now I guess I gotta stay. Glass of lager, what’d you say? I won’t remember you tomorrow but surrender for today.
I was so tight, I can’t remember a thing from last night. I apologize for the last time in my life.
Glass of water, can you tell me where I am?
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5. |
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Let’s go out to dinner to a place I heard was really great. Let’s get a couple appetizers and a couple of plates. Twenty-four dollars including drinks and tax and tip. With your arm in my arm, I think I can taste what heaven is.
And the waitress we had got on my nerves. She read the specials when I’d already decided what I wanted served. And I wanted to blame her more than I should. She just wants to be an actress, she wants so bad for it to happen, and she was doing the best she could. And it was really pretty good.
Let’s go to the movies because I believe that I have had enough. Let’s dig the majesty of Hollywood, like Bette Davis and all that stuff. I love it when the lights dim, I love to see the curtains go up. I love the way the place just soothes me when my day’s been really rough.
And the picture I saw was for the birds. The dialogue was lazy and the characters and pacing were indescribably absurd. But in the cool of the theater, with the Coke we’d spiked, I lean back in my seat and reach out for the heat of my baby at my side. And really it was all right.
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6. |
To See Things Begin
04:17
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I’m just sitting on the sofa, baby, like I got nothing to do. But I’m waiting for you to come over and to run my hands all over you. It’s too early to confide. Just slide over to my side. Ooh, how I love to see things begin. Ooh, knock on my door, baby, how I love to let you in.
So I ushered her into my kitchen. I encouraged her to take off her shoes. Before I could hustle her with my fiction, she urged me to show her the other room. We were off like a big gun had us shot into the sky. We both thought we had found someone. To our shock, we both were right. And I don’t know about the places you’ve been to, and I can’t recall the names of all who you love, but I think I like what I’m getting into. I think I’d like to hit the lights and let the night do all it’s capable of. Ooh, how I love to see things begin. Ooh, knock on my door, baby, how I love to let you in.
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7. |
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I’ve been trying to find the words to say what I need to say, but every time I think I might have found them, I find they metamorphosize to semi-lies the heart cannot infer. For hiding behind the two of us lies the shadow of a third. It’s not you, it’s not me, it’s her.
She is not deserving, she’s as cold as Arctic seas. She has a man she’ll never love as much as you’d love me. But maybe she will leave him and fly just like a bird to my roof, and there she’ll prove I get what I deserve.
You don’t have to forgive me for the hurt that I did cause, but it did not start with me, I just passed it on.
I see a day long years away, your home of warmth and grace. A pretty house with porches wrapped around its lovely face. But the place across the street is shuttered up and does not stir, except a lonely bird up on the roof that cries but is not heard. It’s not you, it’s not me, it’s her.
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8. |
Puffins
03:36
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There are those, I know, with more smarts than me, though I have seen a lot. And I may not read but I believe true love exists beyond the fabulists. I can fly underwater and I can swim the skies. Not for a moment shall I falter. I will return; this I swear to her.
And I will wander on the seas over the blurring of the seasons. Through the stormy chop I’ll find the rock where I entered into this world. Let them coordinate the fleets, let them coronate the eagles. There is no force on earth could me deter from where I last saw my girl.
I’ve heard it said so many times that we all look the same, but where others just see black and white, I see colors so bright, like the island’s in flames. Sometimes I get so nervous when I don’t know who to trust. I’ll lay back on the surface, then in a burst of foam, dart straight for my home.
And I will wander on the seas over the blurring of the seasons. Through the stormy chop I’ll find the rock where I entered into this world. Let them coordinate the fleets, let them coronate the eagles. There is no force on earth could me deter from where I last saw my girl.
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9. |
A Poem and a Mirror
02:55
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All the tales he tells are told with one foot in the cellar, down where the furnace breathes its fiery breath to warm the dwellers. He dreams of heat that reaches past the walls where he’s confined. But if he is denied he’ll freeze as if he’d never tried.
Will he ever be so bold to dare the fatal fangs of cold, that he would one day turn his glare from phantoms on the basement stair? And tell her what was needed told, that he’d love her till they were gray and old, and ever after, evermore, and this he swore upon his soul?
And the kitchen’s silence was like the hush of a theater. Faintly through the floorboards ticked the waking water heater. That night she looked like someone took a poem and a mirror, that all the world would see its secret beauty if it’d see her.
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10. |
Even as You Walk Away
03:33
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If it were truly up to me, I’d have a thousand answers ready so you could ask me what was wrong and I could lie and seem so strong. And you would smile as you walked away and say, I think I’ll be with him some day.
And I would call on my reserve (who’s never hung up on a girl), who’s armed with charms that are just deadly (and knows that it’s a big, big world), and together we would make our pitch and you would walk away convinced. But before I set a wedding date, it occurs to me you still walked away.
We can fly down the highway to the beach and watch the clouds and finally breathe, but when we get back to our streets, red lights at every corner we reach. I think I see that what you need is a man who’s able to proceed as if you’re not all that he believes in and not everything he dreams of. Somebody’s guaranteed to be that man but it’s not me, because the one who really needs you is the one that you don’t need. But I will gladly testify, provide you references, I would raise my right hand and declare that you’re a miracle, I swear.
And I will always care. You can take that with you anywhere. The surf crashing on the beach drowned out the words that we did speak, but may you always hear someone say “I love you” even as you walk away.
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11. |
I Felt Wonderful
03:47
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And I felt wonderful, just like summer would if a season could feel. I felt so good, like all was understood. Lightning-struck and thunder-shook. I felt wonderful.
So I told myself I’d always remember exactly the way it felt, so that every time we were together, I could think back and tell myself that I felt wonderful, just like summer would if a season could feel. I felt so good, like all was understood. Lightning-struck and thunder-shook. I felt wonderful.
Sometimes you can’t rely on rules you invented. Other times you find they work too well. But you find no matter what you intended, there are lessons learned and the world still turns and it wouldn’t be living if it didn’t sometimes hurt. And I felt wonderful, just like summer would if a season could feel. I felt so good, like all was understood. Lightning-struck and thunder-shook. I felt wonderful.
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12. |
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Christy Pickle didn’t have a care, he played fifty-two pick-up solitaire. Threw the cards up into the air, then he’d roll around in them in his underwear. When he was ready for the night to begin, he’d jump in the Civic and take it for a spin. It had a hundred thousand miles but it didn’t show because it had four new tires and a killer stereo. He let it go because he knew that some things were out of his control.
When I go to bed I like to lie and watch the little stars in my plaster ceiling sky. There’s a galaxy on my walls and my door, and I always make a wish when they fall to the floor. And I wish you could be here with me tonight, basking in phospholuminescent starlight. But you’re out with that guy, I’ve forgotten his name, I guess if he’s not me then they’re all the same. I’ll let it go because I know that there are some things that are out of my control.
People offer drugs, people offer advice, taking one is pretty good but taking both is twice as nice. It doesn’t matter if the music’s good, if you like it, it is, if you don’t, you misunderstood. A new romance is like a ride when your heart is thumping as you step inside, and I’d hold your hand on this roller coaster car, but you’re waving yours in the air and I’ve got mine on the bar. I’ll let it go because I know that there are some things that are out of my control.
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13. |
My Heart Is Saturn
03:54
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The Dream Machine tells me it’s three minutes to one. I’d been reading those green letters since three past eleven. And I got all cosmic as I watched the clock tick off minutes from my years when it feels like I arrived here just yesterday. (Or whatever the sayings say.) We were created as gleams of the sun, but then a great big blackness poured down to separate everyone, as if all the light were jettisoned.
It seems that I have seen all that I want to see to be convinced that I’ve stumbled on heaven. She’d been elated and taken some lumps, she was tougher than plaster and faster than any captor could dream of. But now she didn’t have to run.
I once thought I was all alone, I once thought I didn’t need anything, but my heart is Saturn and maybe she is its ring.
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14. |
Skeletons
03:58
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One restless night I felt so strange, my sense of sight had somehow changed. I saw no bodies, saw no souls, but skeletons—I saw just bones. I saw my darling Annalee. I saw her start to notice me. I saw her skeleton so frail. Her pretty face was but a veil.
She ran away from where she’d hid, back to the same predicament. What was contained so deep within to drive her straight right back to him? I was in pain, I was perplexed, wanted to blame her for my mess that I’d created by myself, without her harm, without her help.
I walked the streets of lonely folks, hearts surely beating beneath their coats. Surrounding me all that I saw were skeletons shuffling along. For a long while I could not keep my wandering mind from Annalee. But slowly I got on my feet. Sure enough, time took care of me.
I met a girl not long ago. At night with her, I pull her close. Under her clothes I feel her flesh, along my neck I feel her breath. And her green eyes have made me see all that once had eluded me. The skeletons may lie beneath, but now I see, now I’m complete.
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15. |
This Week
02:26
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I will never fall in love, I will never fall in love, I will never fall in love with you again this week.
Saw through something before it could begin. I’m so smart I think I deserve a medal. Pin it directly to my skin. Push it deep so I’ll always remember. I will never fall in love, I will never fall in love, I will never fall in love with you again this week.
A wire taut enough to walk. I know you think I’m just wanting some tension. But I can’t get my eyes off the clock. All I really want’s an extension. I will never fall in love, I will never fall in love, I will never fall in love with you again this week.
My heart pounds in my head first thing Sunday morning. I think I’ll never get out of my bed. I think I’ll be forever adoring. I will never fall in love, I will never fall in love, I will never fall in love with you again this week.
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Thunderegg San Francisco, California
Thunderegg Central Hub. Find more Egg at:
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