| You got Asperger’s, this ain’t a barbecue
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| It’s your whole afternoon though, lost down a rabbit hole
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| Looking for a timepiece, wonder when your date’s at
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| Wonder if she’ll visit you at all today — relax
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| Wonder how many ribbons to expect in her hair —
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| To deflect talk of triplets in respect for the pair
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| Or to stare at the bow made of four different colors —
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| Didn’t notice someone talking to you: there were others
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| In the room, out in the gloom of the periphery
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| To shift your focus for a moment is to give the ribbons liberty
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| And that’s to suggest they make escape
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| This is a secret from the future: can’t rewind like a tape
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| Got to make the best and the most of each second as it happens
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| Got to keep your eyes on those bows, got to trap in
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| Your vision all four of them ‘cause this is a first:
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| She might have noticed last time that you like ribbons that are hers
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| And sometimes you wish you didn’t. |
| Sometimes it slips your mind
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| But when she’s supposed to visit isn’t one of those times
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| And you’re on one of those lines of thought that you encounter
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| When you’d rather your surroundings were quieter instead of louder
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| So that you could focus on other than a clock tick
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| You don’t want to talk shit but the one who made the clock made the cog stick
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| Minutes are violent noise
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| Obliterating what you thought of as silent poise
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| Miles of boys before you done got crushed
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| Out on a girl like that, her hair flush
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| With ribbons on all occasions and every day
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| If only making study of the bow could stem its getaway
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| Letter A S P E R G E R S:
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| Wonder whether she’s so confident with alphabets
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| That she’d do it backwards skipping alternate letters
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| If you offer demonstration, would she consider that clever?
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| This bitter endeavor: trying to predict a reaction
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| You know you’re supposed to try to give the notion traction
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| But it don’t do nothing ‘cept make the clock tick
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| It don’t even do that. |
| Yo, you got Asperger’s, kid
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| And I feel for you, son. |
| I know love is hard
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| Can’t even write down all the answers on the back of a card
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| From the back and the far end of a cafeteria line
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| You seem to catch sight of a ribbon. |
| Fabric shines
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| And you abandon your tray, leave it clatter on the floor
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| You haven’t planned it this way. |
| You can’t look at her no more
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| You don’t know what her eyes are like, whether she ever smiles
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| Whether anything other than how she wears her hair beguiles
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| And while some apron ladies holler at you
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| You clutch your left ear and stand still like a statue
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| You could count cut corn on the floor without subtracting
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| Misplaced fish sticks like Dustin Hoffman overacting
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| Ain’t this already a scene in need of a fast forward?
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| Why won’t the lunch people hush, do they court discord?
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| You think you see a flash of color fleeing; |
| it could be worse:
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| You could have known how many ribbons there are, if they were hers |