From the Old Days

This Side of Paradise is Lost

This below-the-belt pain
Of adolescence
Is slowly killing me

Let me in
Oh, won’t you please
Allow me to see
What it’s like to be yours
Just for one night
Tonight
Let’s be lovers
And tomorrow
We can return to being just friends
With benefits
Or potential
I know I fit your credentials

All that I believed in
All that you taught me
Is nothing now
But shattered images
I tried so hard to create

Each time you said you hated me
Well, guess what, I hated you too

Remember all those things, darling
That you used to say
How I was your divine intervention
Your new coveted possession
And how I said you stole my purity
And innocence I can no longer look to

Remember when you said
That you hated him instead
Well, sweetie, I hated him more
Because he got you first to bed

Remember all the movies, darling
That I took you to see
Without begging for a make-out session
In the back of my Ford Contour

Remember all those nights
You spent crying on my shoulder
Well I give them no longer

You are no longer worth the effort

What breaks me down
Only builds me up and makes me stronger
For when I find a girl I can give myself to
And a girl who loves me back

On the long list of all my wrongs
Your name is written twice

Love for you fooled me once
And now it’s twice inscribed
But it’s the third time
That makes me wish I’d just die
In your arms tonight

And you,
You’ve become
The most naked person
With clothes
On
This side of paradise
Lost, to me