i don't want you to feel successful, i want you to feel like a success
so that if anything goes wrong you don't think of yourself any less

when the nights are longer and darker and the prizes become few
i don't need you to win first place, i just want what's best for you

so if one day you come home and tell me that everything is just too much
that the assignments are unending,
that the trauma just exacerbates such

a feeling of discontentment
a validation that goes awry
if you look at yourself in the mirror and can't help but start to cry

i'll shatter every reflection and then redraw them so you can see
this is what you look like, you're everything to me

first place, the winner, the poet, the CEO
you are who i refer to when i think of where i want my life to go

i don't need a million dollars
i need you to be okay, to keep speaking and writing
i wanna hear everything you have to say

so if one night you come back to me and say nothing went right
i would put your face in mine and say
you're still the prettiest sight

if the theatres were all empty, and the books were never sold
if the restaurants went bankrupt, if all the meals sat there cold

if nobody saw the vision, just judged the draft to be
if everyone hated your work
you'd still have one fan - me

i don't want you to be successful
i want you to be happy with who you are and then realize
you're a million times better than the version you thought was too far

so that when lake starts to mirror and the sun can't help but kiss your shine
i'll tell you the definition of perfection
and then show how you're the picture that i use for mine

and underneath it says 'successful. a brilliant person to know. we can't wait to see all the places they will go. and all the careers they will pursue that they believe the were never good enough for.'

i don't want you to be successful
because that implies you weren't successful before

you're gonna be outstanding, but if 'out' stood in front of you
it would take a seat
because it knows that there's no comparison to

if beautiful fell apart, it would be full of you
i'm repeating it over and over until you memorize it too
that you're gonna be successful

but if success never came, i would draw you to represent it
i would still draw you all the same