Album: New York Hospitals (2008)

Sylvia (An Introduction)

When you were younger, you had nightmares
You had scissor-pain and phantom limbs
And things that kept you nervous
Through that twelve-year interim

When you fell crossing that street
South of Houston, old Manhattan land
Those nightmares fell from building-tops
And took you by the hand

And you were brought into those rooms
With sliding curtains, shining children's heads
And one of them, that boy
Was not as lucky as you then

But he returns to you at night
Just when you think you might have fallen asleep
His face is up against yours
And you're too terrified to speak

Oh, Sylvia
Oh, Sylvia
You may think that I'm not listening
But I am, goddamn, I am

I won't pretend I understand
Because I can't, and know I never will
But something makes you sting
And something makes you want to kill

It made you crawl under that house
And stick your head under the stove
It's all connected
In those complicated nightmares that you wove

Oh, Sylvia
Oh, Sylvia
You may think that I'm not listening
But I am, goddamn, I am