Album: The Stage Names (2007)

Plus Ones

No one wants to hear about your 97th tear,
so dry your eyes or let it go uncried, my dear.
I am all out of love to mouth into your ear,
and not above letting a love song disappear
before it's written.

And no one wants a tune about the 100th luftballoon
that was seen shooting from the window of your room,
to be a spot against the sky's colossal gloom
and land, deflated, in some neighbor state that's strewn
with 99 others.

8 Chinese brothers;
well, there's a reason why the last is smiling wide
and sitting higher than the others,
swinging his arms.

You would probably die before you shot up 9 miles high,
your eyes dilated as light plays upon the sight
of TVC16 as it sings you goodnight.
Relaxed as hell and locked up in cell 45,
I hope you're feeling better.
The 51st way to leave your lover,
admittedly, doesn't seem to be
as gentle or as clean as all the others,
leaving its scars.

All in the after hours of some Greenpoint bar,
I told you I can't listen, baby, about the 4th time you were a lady,
and how your forthrightness betrayed a secret shyness,
stripped away by days of being hailed as "Your Highness."
And what's new, pussycat, is that you were once a lioness;
they cut your claws out.

Kitten, not everyone's keen on lighting candle 17.
The party's done. The cake's all gone. The plates are clean.
The chauffeur's leering from the cheerless mezzanine.
And, in just 1 year, the straight world can pay to see
what they've been missing.

You were caught kissing 8 Chinese brothers,
but there's a reason why the last is smiling wide and sitting higher than the others,
stinking with charm.

And he says, "Lets get lost, let them send out alarms."
He says, "Let's get crossed out and come to harm"
"Lets make the world's stupidest stand and truly mean it
Let's hit the limit of loss over lover's arms
No, lets exceed it"