Shed Some Skin

It's Christmas Day in gay Paris

Not so gay for Galen Z.

Sixteen hours in a sweaty kitchen

For money that makes

minimum wage look good.

6 a.m. on the subway

Stop station, through the doorway

Crowds of people

Standing, yelling, screaming

"What's going on? I must be dreaming."

And the city forgets

They didn't even perceive

And the trains keep blowing up

week after week.

Franzel's traveled wide and far

Back from the U.S.S.R.

Went there to pursue a lifelong calling

You found only numb toes and helpless longing.

Now you're back at home today

Back in the old usa.

Scoop up handfuls of your native dust

And cross the country in a Greyhound bus.

Another failed attempt

It's no use trying to pretend

Now you're right back where you started again.

I saw what's wrong but I didn't see how

I saw, I saw

We're all grown up now.

Today's your twentieth birthday

Alone you walk the banks of Maine

As time runs out to write the second verse of

The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock.

While you're gone we'll be here still

Just beyond those distant hills

Could be that you got the upper hand

When you left this rustic never-never land.

And my breathing constricts

I feel the walls closing in

Could it be that finally we're all

Shedding some skin.