This Shirt

This shirt is old and faded
 All the colors washed away
 I've had it now for more damn years
 Than I can count anyway
 I wear it beneath my jacket
 With the collar turned up high
 So old I should replace it
 But I'm not about to try
 This shirt's got silver buttons
 And a place upon the sleeve
 Where I used to set my heart up
 Right there where anyone could see
 This shirt is the one I wore to every boring high school dance
 Where the boys ignored the girls and we all pretended to like the band
 This shirt was a pillow for my head on a train through Italy
 This shirt was a blanket beneath the love we made in Argeles
 This shirt was lost for three whole days in a town near Buffalo
 'Til I found the locker key in a downtown Trailways bus depot
 This shirt is the one I lent you
 And when you gave it back
 It had a rip inside the sleeve
 Where you rolled your cigarettes
 It was the place I put my heart now
 Look at where you put a tear
 I forgave your thoughtlessness
 But not the boy who put it there
 This shirt was the place your cat decided to give birth to five
 And we stayed up all night watchin'
 And we wept when the last one died
 This shirt is just an old, faded piece of cotton
 Shinin' like memories inside those silver buttons
 This shirt is a grand, old relic
 With a grand old history
 I wear it now for Sunday chores
 Cleanin' house and raking leaves
 I wear it beneath my jacket with the collar turned up high
 So old I should replace it
 But I'm not about to try