ANDY KAUFMAN , Get Another Mask

Grab another mask and put it on, AK
Give it sight with your fingers
and life with your spit
and breath from their very minds
Get another mask, and let them believe
believe they you pulled it out of your ass
When all the time they were begging for it.

It made you cry afterward,
How you came so close to losing yourself
And how life could make you giddy
but never be so wickedly intoxicating.
Life couldn't make you blank.
You're not evil.

You wanted nothing.
And they never understood
Help them love them teach them and they push
you away. They just don't get it.
They never got it. They don't even want it.
But oh, how they wanted you.
Grab another mask and put it on, Andrew.

I'm making a mask, just like you used to, AK.
It has soft hair, that is coarse near the ears.
The eyes are midnight blue and the soul is so deep.
And this one I can hold.
This one I can comfort.
I can do as I was meant to, and hold him, help him.
Tell him he isn't evil. Everything will be all right.

Get another mask and put it on, Geoff.
Is there a soul beneath it all? We think so.
Talk to God and see the lands and let no one know the source of it all.
You know it if you go deep enough.
And We know it too.

Grab another mask and put it on, AK.
Perhaps one day the one that I hold in my hands.
Have I called you out yet?
Given enough hints? Labeled your soul that you thought was a freak? It's me, Andy, I'm here.

Grab another mask and put it on, Andy.
Hug yourself, tight, like I would,
and blink away the loneliness as it sheds.
Cover up the tears, hide them for yourself.
And then put them on the mask if they want them.


Phantom, 1998