All This Love and Nowhere to Put It

This is the problem with pants
With no pockets

Shirts and coats and all kinds of clothes
And nothing to do
But wear them

Not good for anything else

So here I am with all this love
And nowhere to put it

In other fields I'm deficient

Time and money
Trust and moxie
Taste and melancholy

But love?

Love I got plenty of

I was born with it

The doctor who delivered me
Took one long at my little self
And fell in love with the nurse
Standing next to him

He gave me to my mother
And the first thing she did was say 'Love'

The doctor said--

'You're naming her Love?'

And my mother said--

'Love'

It's all she could say

My mother died when I was three
And the last thing she said to me
Was 'Love'

How beautiful to be able to say your child's name
And how you feel
And what you've got
And all you've got
And what you're taking with you
All with one word

The first man I ever loved was my brother

It should have been my Daddy
But he was like how I am now

People throwing love at him
And nowhere to put it

That was 'cause of my mother
'Cause after she died
He lost all his pockets

See, she was his pocket
The place where he kept himself
And when she died
The pocket got sewn up
And nobody could get in
Not even his little girl
Or the son who had his name

My brother's name was Will
And just like I had love
He had will
He had a strong mind
About what he wanted
And how he was going to get it

He became my pocket
When my mother left
And my father couldn't look at me

Will went to college
And became a lawyer
And then one day he went to a nice restaurant
With nice tablecloths
And silverware so nice it didn't smudge
And he ate something that didn't sit well with him
An allergy he never knew he had kicked in
And he kicked himself away from the fancy table
With the nice tablecloth
And the spotless silverware
And he landed on the ground
Clutching his throat
And he never
Got
Up

...He was my pocket

I loved men after him
But when I did
I saw the love slip off them

I saw it hit their hearts
And land on the ground

The men I went after
Were like my father
Loving them was like feeding a skeleton
You see it go in
And you see it fall down

It got so I wanted to stop loving altogether
But I couldn't

My mother named me Love
And love was what I had
All I had
All I had left

And so now here I am

All this love
And nowhere to put it

Guess I gotta learn to keep it in me
To be my own pocket
To find a place in myself
Where the love can go

But whereas people tell you love is light and airy
The truth is, love can be the heaviest thing you have

It's something that only gets lighter
When you give it away

It makes you tempted to give it away
To people who don't deserve it
Who don't want it
Who just want to beat it up
And then give it right back to you...

...So for now I gotta find a pair of pants
Pants with pockets

Give myself a place to put all this love
Someplace where I know
It'll be safe