Year after year,
Day after day,
The quicksand that I walk through was getting
Much, much too heavy to resist the temptation
Of drowning myself inside it.

I look at the faces of the people around me.
Everyone looks the same.
Nobody wants to be near me,
So why should I remember their names?
I fake a big smile, crack jokes for a while,
But my life is so sad and mundane.
There are those who would help you,
When you’re feeling down,
But why do I need help when
I’m everyone's clown?

For far too long I waited and waited for
The light at the end of the tunnel
To envelop me in its warm embrace and
Save me from myself.
So many years spent cracking jokes, and yet
I still can’t find the energy to crack a real smile.
All those years in Boy Scouts and still my knot-tying skills
Aren’t even enough to get a noose right.

I have seen what comes after the light
At the end of the tunnel.
Simply put,
An athlete, a basket case, a brain, a princess, and a criminal.
I was once made of stone,
Too heavy to lift, too rough to the touch,
Too gritty and thick to get through to.
But the people at the end of the tunnel,
They emerged with their chisels in hand,
And they raised me up and showed me the light –
The light at the end of the tunnel.

As they hammered away at my rock-hard heart,
Only then could I see the light.
That light was the sun, and the gleam of their smiles,
That I had overlooked in my life.

I’m out of the quicksand, now on solid ground –
I think that I might be alright.