Burnt Leaves

You never ask me to come over

When you sit at the end of the bar

With a look on your face

Like you’re watching the implosion of a star

Was it another audition

Where the casting director led you on?

Now you’re looking to score

So we can discuss the golden era past the break of dawn

I never tell you that you’re too temperamental

For such a brutal line of work

That your kindness would be better served

As a teacher or a nurse

Nor that your breakdowns amuse me

For I have seen so much worse

Beautiful minds who could have defined the times

Lost because they got sick first

Chorus

Burnt leaves

Scatter at my feet

They’ll disappear down a gutter

And life is never that neat

I feel

This forgotten cemetery inside me

And for the grace of an unknown God

I’d sleep forever beneath a white sheet

Once or twice, you’ve asked outright

Why I give a damn about you

Another anonymous Midwest actress

Probably only passing through

I never reveal

My habit for survival has left me alone

That weeks go by and you’re the only one

Who calls me on the phone

Imagine that, 20 year age gap

And I can’t even pretend to be into girls

Something else must remind me of my mother

Aside from those dark brown curls

So regular together

The waiters gave us a nickname with a ring of truth

I’m the Old Man and the Sea

You’re Betty Boop

Chorus

Well tonight, I think I got something different

To tell you

These minor defeats and indignities

Just haven’t been enough to quell you

And even if it makes you hate me,

Man its work the risk

I’m so damn tired of watching beautiful people

Who think pain and rejection make them exist

Because you’re better than this

Better than dancing on a puppeteer’s string

You might not want to hear it

But the world doesn’t need another pretty face to sing

But who am I kidding? I’ll catch the bare October moon

In the cab’s rearview once we leave this place

And we’ll wind up talking ceaselessly about Cassavetes

And Scorsese, our version of saying grace

You’ll mumble how you feel safe with me, that

I’m the closest you’ve ever had to a father

A dire warning about your destruction will linger on my lips

But I just won’t bother

Chorus