Vanished Rival

My vanished rival

You're not drowning in heartache

I'm not looking for you everywhere

I know

I'm not lost

You're not lost

So what does it matter anymore?

When somebody leaves

Where they go?

And you weren't some

Staggering debutante

And I've never made a stunning debut

In some burnt-out and torn-down restaurant

Your black coffee and mine so sweet

I was sugar-sick

And we were in so deep

Oh, my vanished rival

And oh, my love

Is that where I left you?

'Cause I know sometimes

Smoke gets in my eyes

But I seem to recall

Almost nothing else at all

Just you across some table

The rest is a mystery

Our sick, city fable

We'll call it my vanished rival

You used to be my girl

What's left of you

And what's left of me?

We explained it away so easily

And if I miss your highs and lows

Your lows and your highs

And our thousand goodbyes

As the first of the last

Of the true one-and-onlys

Not wide-eyed, but careless

See, and what happens is the rest

I still don't love you any less

And I still don't know what's good for me

There's some film locked away

With a few other things I kept

And if I watched it, I might dissolve

Or go up in flames

Ashes to ashes 'til nothing remains

Like my vanished rival

Used to be my girl