One Night Stand

Lyrics

[Intro]
(a room tone, a lamp switch clicking on)
She was a lampshade.
That's the whole costume.

[Verse 1]
In a room full of nurses who had never seen a ward,
and officers of nothing, and a pirate with a sword,
she came in as a nightstand. A small one. Made of wood.
A lampshade on her head and a drawer where a drawer should
be, and a coaster, and a paperback, and a glass —
and she stood against the wall the way a nightstand has to stand.

[Chorus]
"I'm a one night stand," she said,
and the room went up in flames.
The filthiest thing anybody said all night,
and she's the only one here fully dressed.
One night stand. One night stand.
Covered head to toe and holding up a lamp.

[Verse 2]
Now everybody else was showing everything they had,
and the joke was on the surface and the surface wasn't bad —
but she built a piece of furniture and wore it like a dare,
and the dirtiest three words of the whole entire year
came out of the most covered person standing in that room,
and that is called a punchline, and it landed like a broom.

[Chorus]

[Bridge]
She held people's drinks all night. That's what a nightstand does.
She held their keys, their phones, their glasses, and she never once
broke character or explained it or apologized or moved.
And somewhere around midnight it stopped being a joke
and started being something like the only honest thing:
a person standing still and being useful. Holding things.

[Chorus]

[Outro]
(lamp switch clicks off)
One night only.
That's what a stand is.
That's all a stand has ever been.