Could I Leave You

Leave you? Leave you?

How could I leave you?

How could I go it alone?

Could I wave the years away

With a quick goodbye?

How do you wipe tears away

When your eyes are dry?

Sweetheart, lover, could I recover?

Give up the joys I have known?

Not to fetch your pills again every day at five

Not to give those dinners for ten elderly men from the UN

How could I survive?

Could I leave you?

And your shelves of the world's best books

And the evenings of martyred looks, cryptic sighs

Sullen glares from those injured eyes?

Leave the quips with a sting, jokes with a sneer

Passionless lovemaking once a year?

Leave the lies ill-concealed and the wounds never healed

And the game's not worth winning

And wait, I'm just beginning

What, leave you, leave you?

How could I leave you?

What would I do on my own?

Putting thoughts of you aside

In the south of France

Would I think of suicide?

Darling, shall we dance?

Could I live through the pain

On a terrace in Spain?

Would it pass?

It would pass

Could I bury my rage with a boy half your age

In the grass?

Bet your ass

But I've done that already or didn't you know, love?

Tell me, how could I leave when I left long ago, love?

Could I leave you?

No, the point is, could you leave me?

Well, I guess you could leave me the house

Leave me the flat

Leave me the Braques and Chagalls and all that

You could leave me the stocks for sentiment's sake

And ninety percent of the money you make

And the rugs and the cooks

Darling, you keep the drugs

Angel, you keep the books

Honey, I'll take the grand

Sugar, you keep the spinet

And all of our friends and

Just wait a goddamn minute

Oh, leave you? Leave you?

How could I leave you?

Sweetheart, I have to confess

Could I leave you?

Yes!

Will I leave you?

Will I leave you?

Guess!