be me walking around buenos aires stopping for archways iron gates shadows on old buildings probably force of habit probably collecting details for someone else [Verse 1] there’s this other guy also me Borges he gets all the mail his name appears on envelopes professor lists biographical dictionaries people study his childhood his influences his recurring themes I see myself in shop windows for half a second before the angle changes he has my face more or less my memories more or less my name completely [Anti-Chorus] my face when I live my life so Borges can write his literature my face when he gets the name and I get the weather my face when I walk through buenos aires and he gets buenos aires [Verse 2] we like the same things hourglasses old maps eighteenth century fonts etymology coffee Stevenson’s prose but when I like them I think I actually like them when Borges likes them it feels performative like an actor doing a very convincing bit about being me I give him a courtyard a knife a sentence overheard in a café he adds mirrors tigers infinity a dead theologian suddenly it’s literature not gonna lie some of the pages are good this is part of the problem [Anti-Chorus] my face when the literature is beautiful but it still cannot save me my face when the good lines belong to language not to him not to me language gets the custody [Verse 3] eventually I’ll fade away completely maybe one moment survives inside Borges a morning a fear rain against one window he’ll keep it then distort it and exaggerate it I give him an afternoon he returns it as a labyrinth I give him a dream he puts another dream inside it and now nobody can leave [Anti-Chorus] my face when I slowly give him everything my face when he turns my life into evidence that he existed my face when I become a source the citation outlives the witness [Verse 4] Spinoza said all things want to keep being themselves rocks remain rocks tigers remain tigers I’m paraphrasing Borges would know the exact wording Borges always knows the exact wording that’s another thing he stole I also want to remain myself apparently but I’ll remain in Borges not in myself assuming there is a myself which feels increasingly optimistic sometimes I think I am only the part of Borges that gets tired the part that walks home the part that forgets quotations the part that answers the door [Anti-Chorus] my face when the tiger remains a tiger the stone remains a stone and I remain a paragraph in Borges my face when I recognize myself less in everything he wrote than in some random guitar strumming through a wall [Verse 5] a few years ago I tried to escape him left behind neighborhood myths dusty courtyards men with knives I moved on to games with time infinite libraries people dreaming other people the universe as one sentence misremembering itself new territory or so I thought then those things became Borges too of course they did now time belongs to Borges infinity belongs to Borges mirrors belong to Borges there is probably a Borges copyright claim on eternity [Bridge] so I think up new things I keep moving but he arrives first already waiting inside the title every road I take to escape him becomes another road people call typically Borges my whole life is running from the author who turns the escape into style [Final Anti-Chorus] my face when I invent a new world and Borges gets the credit my face when I try to disappear and disappearance becomes a recurring motif my face when he gets the metaphor and I get older [Outro — whispered] losing everything everything goes to oblivion or to Borges oblivion or Borges at least oblivion doesn’t exaggerate be me walking around buenos aires hear a guitar somewhere nearby for one second I recognize myself not in the books not in the name not in the mirrors just in the sound then Borges hears it too and now it belongs to him probably I don’t know I don’t even know which one of us is writing this my face when
