Lyrics If You Can't Love Me - Sting

If You Can't Love Me

Please sit down, just talk to me,
We'll see if we can talk this through,
I've tried so hard to understand it,
Just tell me something that's close to the truth…
I'd rather you were cruel than kind,
Is all that I'm demanding,
I've given up on peace of mind,
For the open wound of understanding.
You can't be here and someplace else,
If your mind is in that other place,
You're trying to convince yourself,
But you're lying in my face,
I've listened ‘til my head would spin,
I don't want half of anything.
The sand sits in the hourglass,
Time slips through our fingers fast,
Your counterfeits deceived me,
If you can't love me this way,
Then you must leave me.
Tell me how it came to this,
Just don't think to spare me this,
Perhaps the truth can set us free,
From the half truths ensnaring you and me,
This black hole of intensity,
Collapses on its density,
And sucks me to a darker place,
That hides behind a broken face.
Keep up appearances they say,
And all those reasons you might stay,
Ring hollow in my mind today,
I've listened ‘til my head would spin,
I don't want half of anything,
I don't want half of anything.
The fields are sown with seeds of doubt,
The wine is warm, you spit it out,
This drinking won't relieve me,
If you can't love me this way,
Then you must leave me.
The patterns in the distant stars,
Our fates upon a loom,
The changes in the temperature,
When you walked into a room,
The smell of your perfume,
The taste of your skin,
All those bitter reminders,
Of the failed state I'm in.
How do I breathe now, how do I inhale?
I'm a diver on the seabed, my oxygen's failed.
How do I wake up, how do I sleep?
How do I laugh now, I can't even weep?
Where do I run to, where do I hide?
An insect preserved in formaldehyde,
Yesterday's paper its pages curled,
How can I live in this broken world?
Keep up appearances they say,
But all those reasons you might stay,
Ring hollow in my mind today,
I've listened ‘til my head would spin,
I don't want half of anything,
I don't want half of anything.
The sand it falls in the hour glass,
And time slips through our fingers fast,
And nothing that you say relieves me,
If you can't love me this way,
Then you must leave me.