Seems like only yesterday

I left my mind behind

Down in the Gypsy Cafe

With a friend of a friend of mine—

She sat with a baby heavy on her knee

Yet spoke of life most free from slavery

With eyes that showed no trace of misery—

A phrase in connection first with she I heard

That love is just a four-letter word.

Outside a rambling store-front window

Cats meowed to the break of day—

Me, I kept my mouth shut,

To you I had no words to say—

My experience was limited and underfed—

You were talking, while I hid,

To the one who was the father of your kid:

You probably didn’t think I did, but I heard

You say that love is just a four-letter word.

I said goodbye unnoticed,

Pushed towards things in my own games,

Drifting in and out of lifetimes

Unmentionable by name,

Searching for my double, looking for

Complete evaporation to the core—

Though I tried and failed at finding any door,

I must have thought that there was nothing more absurd

Than that love is just a four-letter word.

Though I never knew just what you meant

When you were speaking to your man,

I could only think in terms of me

And now I understand—

After waking enough times to think I see

The Holy Kiss that’s s’posed to last eternity

Blow up in smoke, its destiny

Falls on strangers, travels free—

Yes, I know now, traps are only set by me

And I do not really need to be assured

That love is just a four-letter word.

Strange it is to be beside you

Many years, the tables turned—

You’d probably not believe me

If I told you all I’ve learned—

And it is very, very weird indeed

To hear words like “forever” plead,

So ships run through my mind, I cannot cheat—

It’s like looking in a teacher’s face complete:

I can say nothing to you but repeat what I heard—

That love is just a four-letter word.