From the album It Goes On
This is about performing desire so hard you disappear into it. The narrator stages himself for someone's arrival, body ready, face composed, but the looking goes straight through him like he's not there. He accuses the other person of treating him like a pinup, but he's already reduced himself to a posed thing before anyone else gets the chance.
I was standing to attention by the time that you arrived
Military language for an erection, but also the posture of waiting to be inspected. He is already frozen in performance before the other person even shows up.
It's the face that I was pulling when you looked right through me
He can't see his own expression because he is too busy performing it. The face he made while trying to look alive is the exact face that made him invisible.
Something changed when I got older now the hours move like death
Time used to pass. Now it drags because he is stuck in the same loop, staging the same arrival, pulling the same face. Aging without moving forward.
You think I'm like one of your pinup boys / You learn your lessons and you stay
He is calling out objectification while describing his own self-objectification. The 'lesson' is not wisdom. It is learning your limits and never testing them again.
You learn your lessons and you stay
The song ends mid-loop. No exit, no revelation. Staying is not a decision, it is what happens when you mistake paralysis for discipline.
The song never says whether the other person actually treated him like a pinup or if he just positioned himself that way and blamed them for it. Either way, he is still there, standing to attention, learning his limits, staying.