But You're Not Here

There's a dinner table
With a birthday cake
With presents
With people
With happy people
With ham
With long golden curtains
And candles that may never burn out

And I want to be here
But you're not here

There's a street that you walk down
On your way home from dancing
At a sleazy bar with other women
Having the time of your life

And this street doesn't scare you
And nothing scares you
You live in fearlessness
You live in full view of the street lamps
And you live in the darkness
And you walk with your arms out
Balancing on the edge
Of midnight and morning

I could take you with me
To a late night dance hall eternity
If you were here

But you're not here

There's a rooftop
Where there's barbecue chicken
And arugula salad
And girls in half dresses
And guys with guitars
And a city outstretched
Like an unending road
And the summer has left
But the warmth is still here

And you were the summer
And yet I'm still warm
And I shouldn't be warm
But I can't keep myself frozen
Waiting for you to come warm me up

I want you to be here
But you're not here

There's a broken thing that can't be fixed
There's a plane without an engine
There's a phone call that can't be more
Than a phone call

There's a voicemail that needs to be a soft kiss
There's a letter that needs to be your hand holding mine
There's a empty place where you need to be
And if you can't be here
Then in so many ways
What is you is not you
And what there is to love about you
Might as well be hiding
Out of the reach of the streetlights
Somewhere farther down the unending road

And I want to go looking for it
But I want to stay here more

There are people here
People who aren't you
But people who are here

Good people
Present people
Real people

Not theories of people
Not memories of people
Not people that could be other people

Just people

And I didn't want to kiss anyone else
I just wanted to kiss, to do the action

To kiss

And I didn't want to sleep with anyone else
I just wanted to sleep

And someone was there
And someone was kind
And I was...

And I didn't want to let you go
But it was that or lose you

You could either be let go
Or lost

And I'd rather let go

I'd rather us let go of this
Then break ourselves against the rocks
Trying to hold on
To this ship
In the rolling storm around us

I didn't know until now
I didn't know how much of love
Was here

I heard about long distance love affairs
And letter writing
And romances from afar
And absence making the heart grow fonder

And it's lies
It's all lies

Because I can be loving you
Without you

But to be in love
You need to be here