You think you're not worthy
I'd have to say I agree
I'm not worthy of you
You're not worthy of me
Which of us is deserving
Look at the human race
The whole planet at arm's length
And we don't deserve this place

What good is a poker face
When you've got an open hand
I was supposed to be cool about this
I remember cool was the plan
Tried to keep it all under wraps

Tiptoeing through the used condoms
Strewn on the piers
Off the west side highway
Sunset behind the skyline of jersey
Walking towards the water
With a fetus holding court in my gut
My body highjacked
My tits swollen and sore
The river has more colors at sunset
Than my sock drawer ever dreamed of
I could wake up screaming sometimes
But I don't

Fourteenth street and the garbage swirls like a cyclone
Three-o-clock in the afternoon
And I am going home
F-train is full of high school students
So much shouting, so much laughter
Last night's underwear
In my back pocket
Sure sign of the morning after

Take me home
Take me home and leave me there
Think I'm going to cry, don't know why

the heat is so great
it plays tricks with the eye
it turns the road to water
and then from water to sky
and there's a crack in the concrete floor
and it starts at the sink
there's a bathroom in a gas station
and i've locked myself in it to think

and back in the city
the sun bakes the trash on the curb
the men are pissing in doorways
and the rats run in herds
i've got a dream of your face

I'm sorry I didn't sound more excited on the phone
I'm sorry that after all these years
I've left you feeling unrequited and alone
Brought you to tears

I guess I never loved you quite as well
As the way you loved me
I guess I'll never really be able to tell you
How sorry I am

I don't know what it is about you
I just know it's not what it was

Wish I didn't have this nervous laugh
wish I didn't say half the stuff I say
wish I could just learn to cover my tracks
Guess I'm not concerned enough
About getting away with it

Every time I try to hold my tongue
It slips like a fish from a line
They say if you want to play
You should learn how to play dumb
I guess I can't bring myself
To waste your time

I am not a pretty girl
That is not what I do
I ain't no damsel in distress
And I don't need to be rescued
So put me down punk
Wouldn't you prefer a maiden fair
Isn't there a kitten
Stuck up a tree somewhere

I am not an angry girl
But it seems like
I've got everyone fooled
Every time I say something
They find hard to hear
They chalk it up to my anger

The air comes off the ocean
The city smells fishy
The air is full of fish and mystery
Whispering who, what, when
And I'm warning you I am weightless
And the wind is always shifting
So don't hang anything on me
If you ever want to see it again
I am telling you I'm different than you
Think I am

And you can dangle your carrot
But I ain't gunna reach for it
Cuz I need both my hands

Hour follows hour
Like water follows water
Everything is governed by the rule
Of one thing leads to another
You can't really place blame
Cuz blame is much to messy
Some was bound to get on you
While you were tryin to put it on me

Don't fool yourself
Into thinking things are simple
Nobody's lying still the stories don't line up
Why do you try to hold on

Squint your eyes and look closer
I'm not between you and your ambition
I am a poster girl with no poster
I am thirty-two flavors and then some
And I'm beyond your peripheral vision
So you might want to turn your head
Cuz someday you're going to get hungry
And eat most of the words you just said

Both my parents taught me about good will
And I have done well by their names

I want somebody who sees the pointlessness
And still keeps their purpose in mind
I want somebody who has a tortured soul
Some of the time
I want somebody who will either put out for me
Or put me out of my misery
Or maybe just put it all to words
And make me say, you know
I never heard it put that way
Make me say, what did you just say?

Got a garden of songs
Where I grow all my thoughts
Wish I could harvest one or two
For some small talk
I'm always starving for words
Whenever you're around
Nothing on my tongue
So much in the ground
Nothing on my tongue
So much in the ground

Half the time I got my gaze
Trained on your motel door
Fourth door from the end
Rest of the time my gaze lays

The big day has come
The bell is sounding
I run my hands through my hair one last time
Outside the prison walls
The town is gathering
People are trading crime for crime

Everyone needs to see the prisoner
They need to make it even easier
They see me as a symbol, and not a human being
That way they can kill me
Say it's not murder, it's a metaphor
We are killing off our own failure

Our father who art in a penthouse
Sits in his 37th floor suite
And swivels to gaze down
At the city he made me in
He allows me to stand and
Sollicit graffiti until
He needs the land I stand on
I in my darkened threshold
Am pawing through my pockets
The receipts, the bus schedules
The matchbook phone numbers
The urgent napkin poems
All of which laundering has rendered