To Be Loved

I'm a sailor, I'm a mended fence
I am guilty your honor of every offense
I'm a good time, but a bad lay
I'm a scarecrow, I'm a wretched mistake
I'm a black hole in a blue space
I'm a quick study but slow to leave
I got scruples you wouldn't believe
But I'd give them up for anything
Anything to be loved

You should know
I'm the silhouette of a parking space you can't fit your car in but try anyways
I'm the cigarette hanging off of your face
Want to quit but you're stuck on the taste of the glory days
I know better but I won't say a word
This confession is getting too obscure
I wish, I wish, I wish to be loved

And the record will not show all the notches in our bones
And you'll be texting me in thirty years
Correcting every song but oh no
It's the truth that got it wrong

I'm the worst trip that you'll ever have
And keep having, they can't all be bad
Cuz your optimism says you oughtta dig deep into every fad
I'm the bullet you think you dodged
But you keep wondering where it would have lodged
In your flesh? In your heart?
It's too easy to talk about love
It'll never be true enough
But I'm sick of growing up and getting numb
I'm a white dress in a bloody machine
Or perhaps the machine is me
And the white dress is something I found on the street or bought for cheap
I'm a poet if you're pressed for time
If you're not I got nothing but rhymes
And the point I'm trying to make is I've been trying all this time to be loved

And the record will not show all the notches in our bedposts
And you'll be texting me in thirty years
Correcting every song but oh no
It's the truth that got it wrong

Think of me as a half smile on a bad day
A quick fix for a chronic sort of ache
I'm just one of the ones who got away
And that's okay
You too, you got away
But I remember you in sunglasses
That's how I always preferred your face
I'm a bad decision that you still make, still make