My love no longer belongs to your life;
But your love to my life still belongs
For my happiness. For my happy songs.
You have given my love back.
But I still love you: I do not have that lack.
My love no longer belongs to you,
Your soul, or all your soul knows it must do.
Love made your life too precarious,
Too fateful and too serious.
Calmly, you move back to old, slow habits;
And you will grow old, and the years shall run like rabbits.
No need to run for that illicit train
Or present for love’s inspection your body and brain;
Now you can relax while you dream.
Now you can put on makeup for everyone, not me,
Who made paramount you, and your beauty.
Now you can just say anything, again,
And impress billions of men.
Who wants to be confined?
And to make matters worse, we pined.
Love really was a pain in the ass.
It had its moments, but let them pass.
What was it for, if not for children?
It only takes a moment to make a child
So then it happens you can never be wild.
You were getting old for them to have been,
So love fed amusement, flattery, and sin.
The pleasant illusion you had of me
(Of course) couldn’t stand up to scrutiny.
Women love jealousy, because they are turned on
By sparks of social comparison;
This jealousy the man has to rise above;
Indifference to the woman is the secret to success in love.
And its downfall, as well.
No wonder passionate love is a kind of hell.
I learned this too late
(I don’t know how I survived the first date)
Because I was focused entirely on you—
Or maybe not. Maybe I had some genius for indifference, too.
Who really knows?
Maybe you got sick of the shape of my nose.
Or maybe you had anxiety disorder
And you couldn’t handle me crossing your border.
I doubt it. It was the jealousy
That finally did in you and me.
I dug in. So you had to flee.
But your love in my life still remains:
For my songs, for which I take such pains.
