Sometimes the ***** of my driveway is enough
To keep me locked up tight at home
My promises are mostly empty, mostly drunk
And later I plead sick or stuck or broken
Because loving things is hard
Each new time is like the last
An equation I cannot break or match
Whiskey spilled makes common ground
And everyone here is going to be sorry
Because loving things is hard

But it’s nice to be in love, it’s
Peaches in the summertime,
Apples in the fall
Sometimes I miss it all
Because it was all so god ******  nice
It was nice in his kitchen making coffee while he showered
And laughing wet-hair kisses in the bedroom
It was nice on the futon by the wood stove
Reading books while he was off in some basement playing music
And making love when he came home
Nice when played Birmingham, nice how he was shy
Nice too, when he played Shady Grove and I thought my heart would die
From the way he’d taken something that had been his before, and mine before
And hung it up in the air between us like it could be ours
Now that air is gone
And I never sing that song

Yes, it was nice, very nice, to be in love
But it is good, very good, to be free
Because I have places to go, and loving things is hard
I don’t like the way it pulls on all my strings, dragging them out of me,
Tying their ends to beds and tables and chairs,
Running them through guitars,
So that it hurts to leave
And the stroke of some nice man’s fingers can send vibrations all through me,
Touching everything
I don’t like the way I become more who I am with him
Than who I am with everything and everyone else, who I am by myself
It is nice to make coffee and love and songs
But it is good to be free,
Because loving things is hard