The Pursewarden Affair - Anaïs Mitchell

Percy Pursewarden

Open up your door

I haven’t come to break your cadence

Or mix your metaphor

And if I swore I was no critic would you let me come inside?

Would you write your famous lines?

And you lay your secret plans

For suicide by slight of hand?

And you let me down so kindly

You don’t love me

But you don’t mind me

Percy Pursewarden

After all your hard traveling

Think a girl could lay down beside you without your world unraveling?

In a modeling mess

Yes, that’s my clothing in a pile

Just wanna stay a little while

Just wanna see that crooked grin

After the sedatives set in, hey

And then we’re feeling fine

You don’t love me

I don’t mind

Percy Pursewarden

I’ll be gone before you wake

Back to the gallery of failures to see what I can make of you

Pursewarden

Have mercy on my heart

Maybe I don’t want to call it art

Just because you nailed it to the wall

Maybe I’m a critic after all

And you don’t have to remind me

You don’t love me

But you don’t mind me