tigres tristes

**Verse 1**

Four sad tigers in second-hand sweaters,

posing like saints in a provincial room.

One wears glasses and reads rejection letters,

one hums softly to the coming doom.

The camera flashes, nobody smiles,

the wallpaper sighs like a tired old sea.

We were born with magnificent stripes, dear,

and absolutely no dignity.

**Chorus**

Oh, Tigres Tristes,

how beautifully you fail.

You roar like poets

with your tails between your tales.

And if love is a jungle,

then I was badly dressed.

Oh, Tigres Tristes,

eat my heart and leave the rest.

**Verse 2**

There were distant villains at the station,

boasting loudly over lukewarm tea.

Hostages of every conversation,

all pretending they were almost free.

You said, “Life is only rough wood, rough skin,

a wall where the humble crocodiles write.”

I said, “Darling, that sounds like a chorus,”

and you disappeared into the night.

**Chorus**

Oh, Tigres Tristes,

how beautifully you fail.

You roar like poets

with your tails between your tales.

And if love is a jungle,

then I was badly dressed.

Oh, Tigres Tristes,

eat my heart and leave the rest.

**Bridge**

A jovial cradle full of oysters,

a canoe of snoring rain,

an enormous wife in the doorway,

moaning softly like a train.

And all the sad, sad, sad tigers

sign their names across the wall:

“We were hungry for forever,

but forever didn’t call.”

**Final Chorus**

Oh, Tigres Tristes,

you elegant disgrace.

You carried all your sorrow

with a photographable face.

And if heaven has a lobby,

we’ll be waiting, overdressed.

Oh, Tigres Tristes,

eat my heart and leave the rest.

**Outro**

Sad, sad, sad tigers,

edible songs in the air.

Sad, sad, sad tigers,

nobody loved us—

so we learned to care.