Puddle Dive lyrics

I know so many white people
I mean, where do I start?
The trouble with white people
Is you can't tell them apart
I'm so bad with names and dates and times
But I'm big on faces
That is, except for mine

I believe you when you tell me
We've met before
This time you've got my interest
This time you've got the floor
Why don't you go and tell me something
I don't already know

I will lean into you
And you can be the wind
I will open up my mouth
And you can come rushing in
You can rush in so hard
And make it so I can't breathe
I breathe too much anyway
I can do that anyday

I just wish I knew who you were
I wish you'd make yourself known
Probably you don't know I'm her
The woman you want to call home
I'll keep my ear to the wall

You gotta have the right tools
For every job
So I invite myself in
Through a hole in the fence
I am tripping through the junkyard
Scanning over the piles
The thin cats raise their skin in defense
I know he's watching me
I can see him through the cracks
His eyes are small and shy on my back
He says his name is Jason
He lives in the last trailer on the right
And he'll be seven

The windows of my soul
Are made of one way glass
Don't bother looking into my eyes
If there's something you want to know,
Just ask
I got a dead bolt stroll
Where I'm going is clear
I won't wait for you to wonder
I'll just tell you why I'm here

'Cause I know the biggest crime
Is just to throw up your hands
Say
This has nothing to do with me

I saw on the poster
My name was printed
Just a little bit smaller
I can tell you need to stand
Just a little bit taller
No one ever talks about it
But no one can disguise
The cloud of competition
That's hanging behind their eyes
There's more bad blood
In this bar than there is beer
And it's subtle but it still sucks
And I want out of here

We got egos like hairdos

My lipstick
Jumped ship
To a styrofoam cup
With the coffee gone
The conversation strong
All I got left to give
Baby, is up
But sentiments like shadows grow
Oh so long

Guess I gotta go
Don't get up
Don't cry
It's really very simple
Just kiss my cheek and say goodbye
I never really go anywhere anyway
I just pass through from time to time

Bye bye baby
Baby bye bye

Sitting in the boardroom
The I'm-so-bored room
Listening to the suits
Talk about their world
They can make straight lines
Out of almost anything
Except for the line of my upper lip when it curls
Dressed in my best greasy skin and squinty eyes
I'm the only part of summer here
That made it inside
In the air-conditioned building
Decorated with coporate flair
I wonder

I'm not hurting anyone
I'm just telling my truth
And if there
If there is something wrong
Then maybe
There's something wrong with you
What's the big deal
Get over it
Relax
Just 'cause I do up in your face
What other people do behind your back
Why we all gotta look
Gotta act the same
I say
If you're born a lion
Don't bother trying to act tame
Everything I do

When I was four years old
They tried to test my I.Q.
They showed me a picture of 3 oranges and a pear
They said, which one is different?
It does not belong
They taught me different is wrong
But when I was 13 years old
I woke up one morning
Thighs covered in blood
Like a war
Like a warning
That I live in a breakable takeable body
An ever-increasingly valuable body

I'm still here because
I've got nothing else to do
You're an asshole
But I'm getting used to you
I like the fact that
You talk incessantly
I got a thing for assholes
Who tell good stories

I think that drinking
Is the only thing that you do right
You're gonna self-destruct
I think that's what I like
You like me so you try and make me
Feel like shit
I think it's kind of funny yeah

How come I can pick my ears
But not my nose
Who made up that rule anyway
How can you say that's the way it is
That's just the way it goes
Why don't you decide for yourself
What you can do
And what you can say

How come I can pick my friends
But not my enemies
What is it about me that offends
What is it about me
'Cause you know I'm only five foot two
And I'm giggly wiggly

State trooper thinks I drive too fast
Pulled me over to tell me so
I say out here on the prarie
Any speed is too slow
I miss brooklyn I miss my crew
Let's start over
I missed my cue
Guess I just forgot
Who I was talking to

I should have recognized
That fierce look in his eyes
I've seen it in the mirror
So many times
He's going to put his two cents in
'Cause he's got a gun

I am walking
Out in the rain
And I am listening to the low moan
Of the dial tone again
And I am getting
Nowhere with you
And I can't let it go
And I can't get through...
The old woman behind the pink curtains
And the closed door
On the first floor
She's listening through the air shaft
To see how long our swan song can last
And both hands
Now use both hands
Oh, no don't close your eyes

He said Ani, you've gotten tough
'Cause my tone was curt
Yeah, and when I'm approached in a dark alley
I don't lift my skirt
In this city
Self-preservation is a full time occupation
I'm determined to survive on this shore
You know I don't avert my eyes anymore
In a man's world
I am a woman by birth
And after nineteen times around I have found

The slant
A building settling around me
My figure female framed crookedly
In the threshold of the room
Door scraping floorboards
With every opening
Carving a rough history of bedroom scenes
The plot hard to follow
The text obscured in the fields of sheets
Slowly gathering the stains of seasons spent lying there
Red and brown
Like leaves fallen

Lying on the floor
Four stories high
In the corridor
Between the asphalt and the sky
I am caught like bottled water
The light daughter
I wonder what you look like
Under your t-shirt
I wonder what you sound like
When you're not wearing words
I wonder what we have
When we're not pretending
It's never-ending, haven't you heard?
I don't need to tell you
What this is about

Perpetrating counter-culture she is walking through the park
First light ugly and more muscular than the dark
Pushing poems at the urban silence
Drawing portraits of the passers-by
Sitting on the curb
Combining traffic sounds
Getting dirty looks and dirty jeans
On the dirty ground
She says I can't figure out what kind of life this is
Comedy or tragedy I just know it's show biz

I opened a bank account
When I was nine years old
I closed it when I was eighteen
I gave them every penny that I'd saved
And they gave my blood and my urine
A number
Now I'm sitting in this waiting room
Playing with the toys
And I am here to exercise
My freedom of choice
I passed their handheld signs
Went through their picket lines
They gathered when they saw me coming

Pale purple nipples
Goose pimpled
She shivers shifts from a walk to a trot
Alone in the city
Infested with faces
Immune to new friendships
Interested in places she's never seen
She says everything is grey here
And nothing is green
The girls from down the street
Sixteen, seventeen years old
You can smell them getting pregnant
You can hear their rock and roll
That's America

Rush hour
And the day's dawning
The rain came
And pushed me under the awning
The puddles grew and threw themselves at me
With every passing car
I'm shielding my guitar
And there were some things that I
Did not tell him
There were certain things
He did not need to know
And there were some days
When I did not love him
He didn't understand me
And I don't know why
I didn't go

I opened the fire door to four lips
None of which were mine
Kissing
Tightened my belt around my hips
Where your hands were missing
And stepped out into the cold
Collar high
Under the slate grey sky
The air was smoking and the streets were dry
And I wasn't joking when I said
Good Bye
Magazine quality men talking on the corner
French, no less much less of them then us

I would have returned your greeting
If it weren't for the way you were looking at me
This street is not a market
And I am not a commodity
Don't you find it sad that we can't even say hello
'Cause you're a man
And I'm a woman
And the sun is getting low
There are some places that I can't go
As a woman I can't go there
And as a person I don't care

I'm imagining your frame
Every angle
And every plane
I'm imagining your smell
The one that mingled with mine
Once upon a time
Thoughts of you are picketing my brain
They refuse to work such long hours without rest
In unstable conditions at best
They're out there every day
Holding up there signs
And thoughts of no other man but you
Could possibly get through
The picket lines

The butter melts out of habit
The toast isn't even warm
The waitress and the man in the plaid shirt
Play out a scene they've played
So many times before
I am watching the sun stumble home in the morning
From a bar on the east side of town
And the coffee is just water dressed in brown
Beautiful but boring
He visited me yesterday
He noticed my fingers
And asked me if I would play

I am letting the telephone ring
Cause I don't want to know why
I don't want to hear you explain
I don't want to hear you cry
I have written so much about you
So much I thought I knew
Words like water used to flow
Now what could I possibly have to say?
She is someone I don't even know
And all the things that you've given to me
I see now were simply reparations