When you were younger, you had nightmares   You had scissor-pain and phantom limbs   And things that kept you nervous   Through that twelve-year interim      When you fell crossing that street   South of Houston, old Manhattan land   Those nightmares fell from building-tops   And took you by the hand      And you were brought into those rooms   With sliding curtains, shining children's heads   And one of them, that boy   Was not as lucky as you then      But he returns to you at night   Just when you think you might have fallen asleep   His face is up against yours   And you're too terrified to speak.      Oh, Sylvia   Oh, Sylvia   You may think that I'm not listening   But I am, god damn, I am.      I won't pretend I understand   Because I can't, and know I never will   But something makes you sting   And something makes you want to kill      It made you crawl under that house   And stick your head under the stove   It's all connected in those complicated nightmare that you wove      Oh, Sylvia   Oh, Sylvia   You may think that I'm not listening   But I am, god damn, I am.