| When you said you loved me, did you really love me?
|
| Or did the words just spill out
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| like drool on my pillow.
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| 'Cause I was naked
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| when you said those words,
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| but I felt covered in your whispered worship.
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| And as you passed out fast on my shoulder,
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| I imagined a child
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| waiting so sad and still for his mom to arrive.
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| Did she leave you an orphan,
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| in that big, brown leather chair?
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| Said, «Don't you move a muscle, kid,
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| I’ll be back in twenty years,»
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| You were scared, you were lonely,
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| but you must’ve been aware;
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| life is a series of calluses,
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| this is just another layer.
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| So, build’em up, tough it out,
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| yeah, that’s your skin —
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| don’t let anyone under there.
|
| When you said you needed me,
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| did you really need me?
|
| Or was I just someone —
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| oh, you’d take anything.
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| Am I first on that list of yours,
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| or am I second, or third?
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| So, who’s that ahead of me,
|
| some harlot from Pittsburgh?
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| Or Detroit, Santa Fe, or San Diego?
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| I know you’re so alone,
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| but how much affection does one guy really need?
|
| Did you date a lot in high school?
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| Were you always chasing girls?
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| Couldn’t you find some young valentine
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| to steal your heart for good?
|
| Were you content, or contemptible?
|
| Are your memories pleasant,
|
| or is it a string of endless flings of bitter resentment.
|
| Seems that what you want and what you need
|
| doesn’t mean a thing, we’re just here for the taking.
|
| When you said you’d hurt me,
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| did you think you hurt me?
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| Are you really that cocky?
|
| Oh, what a heartbreaker!
|
| Well, I’ve got my armor —
|
| yeah, I’ve been through some battles before.
|
| And I met your old girlfriend,
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| she said, «Baby, don’t bother.»
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| She told me you told her you’d hurt her
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| Funny, how familiar.
|
| So, how much of this relationship was rehearsed?
|
| Did you act out as a child?
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| Were you always crying wolf?
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| Attention-starved, you tried too hard
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| to get someone to look.
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| Now you’re the wolf in second-hand clothing.
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| I’m the sheep in a pleated skirt.
|
| It’s an awkward form of payback,
|
| but if it works for you, it works.
|
| It’s that I recognize your off-white lies,
|
| still, I lie beside you —
|
| and that’s what really hurts.
|
| When you said you’d leave me,
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| well, why haven’t you left me?
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| What are we still doing here,
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| so desperate for company?
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| There’s a greyhound on Jackson Street,
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| there’s an airport in Council Bluffs.
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| Hell, there’s a car in the driveway.
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| Fifty ways to get lost.
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| But as I hold you and listen to you sleeping,
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| I’m starting to wonder if you really believe
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| that you’d ever really leave.
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| Would you leave me, an orphan,
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| in that big, brown leather chair?
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| The one you’ve lugged around from town to town for all these years.
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| It’s the trophy of your childhood,
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| like a shark’s tooth or gator skin boots —
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| but this one holds you prisoner —
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| it holds me prisoner too.
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| What we need to set us free
|
| is to let go of each other — let go of everything.
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| When I said I loved you,
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| it was because I loved you.
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| When I said I needed you,
|
| well, I really need you.
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| Yeah, I guess you hurt me,
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| for once you’re a man of your word.
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| Well, guess what —
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| I’m leaving.
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| I can’t be your prisoner.
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| I won’t. |