If you don’t play with me

If you don’t play with me
I’m sure to find someone else
If you don’t play with me
I’m sure to find some friends who will

If it’s too scary for you
It’s too scary for me
If it’s too serious for you
It’s too serious for me
Then we gotta play
Somewhere, some place, somehow

Dispel that feeling
That makes you feel you’re reeling
Dispel that feeling
Makes you feel you’re ceiling
Coz I wanna go
Flying through the air
For a catch at point
I have nothing more to prove

And
If you don’t play with me
I’ll just play all alone
In my space all alone
Keeping score, by myself
No nation can stop me
I will play in that hallowed state
Coz that’s my backyard
And if I ever come
Face to face with a gun
I know I will have that ball
To throw down at that gun
I will fire it in
Before it can fire me in
Underarm, back flip Azzah style
Sure as hell won’t see it come
Coz I just wanna play
Coz I just wanna play
In my empire, in the sun

If I don’t play with you
I hope for you
That you will play
In your space all alone
Keeping score, by yourself
No nation can stop you
You will play in that hallowed state
Coz that’s your backyard

If you don’t play with me
I’m sure to find someone else
If you don’t play with me
I’m sure to find some friends who will.

(to be performed by David Gray, ideally)

Child.

I am Akash
I am Amarnath
I am Bond
I am Badani

I’m that part of you that sits in dark corners
Waiting for a phone call
But the phone call never comes

And I stare into the mid distance
Staring at a game, I once played
And how I played, that day

I have it on replay, and it just won’t go away
And maybe I don’t want it to go away

It’s my poison and my peace
It heals me and it bleeds me
And there’s frankly not much that I can do

Or is there, I really don’t know

And even if they don’t pick me
Can I pick my scattered bits
Which lie strewn across
Grounds and parks I once played
And how I played that day

I know the words well
Written by a scribe in Sydney
Of the 27th day of December
In the year of our Lord

I am Saurav
I am Saqlain
I am Taibu
I am Telemachus

I am that child in you
That always wants to play.


(to be performed by Leonard Cohen, ideally)