The City

Now I notice the streetlamp’s hum

The ghosts of graffiti they couldn’t quite erase

The blank-faced stares on the subway

As the people go home

The parks lay empty like my unmade bed

The streets are silent like my lifeless telephone

And this is where I live, but

I’ve never felt less at home

So I’m not unsympathetic

I see why you left

There’s no one to know

There’s nothing to do

The city’s been dead

Since you’ve been gone

Sometimes I stand on my roof at night

And watch, as something seems to happen somewhere else

I feel like the breeze will pick me up and carry me away

Out and over this iridescent grid

Up and away from the bar fights and neon lights

Out and away from everything that makes me what I am

So I’m not unsympathetic

I see why you left

There’s no one to know

There’s nothing to do

The city’s been dead

Since you’ve been gone

Oh I never had just whatever it is you want, baby

And I really tried, I tried with all my might—it made me crazy

To try to figure out what it is I’ve done wrong every time

When everything I love, everything I hold dear

Heads out sometime

And all I ever say now is good-bye.