S. Colvin
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Please no more therapy
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Mother take care of me
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Piece me together with a
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Needle and thread
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Wrap me in eiderdown
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Lace from your wedding gown
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Fold me and lay me down
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On your bed
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Or liken me to a shoe
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Blackened and spit-shined through
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Kicking back home to you
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Smiling back home
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Singing back home to you
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Laughing back home to you
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Dragging back home to you
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I was so wary then
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The ugly American
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Thinner than oxygen
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Tough as a whore
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I said you can lie to me
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I own what's inside of me
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And nothing surprises me anymore
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But forests in Germany
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Kids in the Tuileries
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Broken-down fortresses
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In old Italy
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And claiming his victory
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Shrouded in mystery
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He went running away with me
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Back in our home New York
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Walking these streets forlorn
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We all in our uniforms
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Black and black
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Doing that slouch and jive
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The artist must survive
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We've got all we need we cried
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And we don't look back
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Thinking we had it made
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Poised for the hit parade
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Knee deep in accolades
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The conceptual pair
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But ever the malcontent
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He left without incident
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Vanished into thin air
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Now I am always amazed
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Words can fill up a page
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Pages fill up the days
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Between him and me
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But the vows that we never keep
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From bedrooms to business-speak
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Make me remember how cheap
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Words can be
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And the letters I wrote you of
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Were those of the desperate stuff
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Like begging for love in a suicide threat
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But I am too young to die
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Too old for a lullaby
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Too tired for life on the ledge
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But I had a dream last night
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Of lovers who walked the plank
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Out on the edge of time
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Amidst ridicule
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They laughed as they rocked and reeled
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Over the mining fields
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Coming to rest on this ship of fools
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But he just took polaroids
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Of her smile in the light
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Of the dawn of the menacing sky
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And before they went overboard
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She turned and held up a card
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And it said Valentine
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Polaroids
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Shawn Colvin |