I carry a house on my shoulders,
Some bills have been bogging my mind,
I've had a tub overflowing for some time
With a smile and bags full of boulders under my eyes
I can't complain, sir, I'm doing fine.
Not fine in the sense, that I'm doing bad
Yet, don't want the atmosphere to be tense
But fine like life is a struggle, no clouds are in my sky
Unless it's raining, in which case we dance.

See, people don't realize you only get one shot
To ***** up your life with every atom you've got
And listen to many past generations
Then continue to make the mistakes you've been making,
I'm not being sarcastic, it's wonderful.
Seriously, I can't think of a better time to live
Sadly, people give all they can give
To a digital internet, no disrespect.
But stop posting and really live, disconnect.
Stop taking pictures and videos to show others
Who cares if acquaintances  like or love it?
It's your life, do you love it?

I've heard from strangers for years say, go get published,
So I ask if they'd buy a copy, they say no
It's not their thing and they feel out of place
Then tell me why your advice was to put my money to waste?
Even fans wouldn't offer me a spot
On their shelf or their wall, so just leave me here
You don't need to encourage me at all.
I'll write until my fingers turn to nubs
I've been ***** all my life, no matter how hard I scrub.

Honey is beauty in the eyes of bee holders
With a hive that's guarded by many soldiers
But for me, my love, it is coffee, mate.
In a red container and a label reading Folger 's
No time to brew, so I chew grounds in my teeth
About a half tub a day, let's be honest, I don't sleep.
No 40 winks, not a one, in a blink, that day's done
And I only wrote this because I found the wordplay fun

About twenty-nine thousand kids die everyday
And I wonder why I was blessed to grow up
Why did I get a chance to grow up,
In a roulette system of unfavorable odds
They let me have a life and tried to say
I should thank all my achievements to a god.
Don't take the little I earned
And say it wasn't mine to earn.

These days aren't all easy, the nights are a blur
I found the best friends in people who didn't know who they were
Growing up and forgetting to throw up their hands
Then defining themselves by jobs, they happened to land
****. Weren't we just kids, can you feel that?
Hold on a second, let me take you back.

Remember that time, back in Szumski's basement
We spent no time practicing, Mitch on drums, Clark on bass
I started singing, no stage, but it felt like a taste
Of what our lives would be like making it
Every wasted night, not a night felt wasted.
Not a night felt wasted. Remember?
Pretending we could skate and scooter
Even if as the summer's end kept coming sooner
We'd never admit we were doomed. To grow up.

We mostly split, seperate ways, that's how life plays
Speaking in tenses of old acquaintances, "I'm doing okay."
I wonder how often we really are okay when we speak that way.
A million thoughts a minute fly through my mind,
And if I'm being honest, sometimes, I just miss you guys.
In the past six years, I've felt like a failure, a champion,
A father, a loser, and all the others in between.
If growing up for you has been like it is for me
I'm sure you know exactly what I mean.

All the beautiful people I'll never be
Walking on these crooked paths and
See right through me, I see right through you
Who am I? I'm beautiful, you're beautiful.
And I find it scary, we define ourselves only by words
Found in every standard dictionary.
What's your beauty making you a freak?
Before you speak, understand, you don't need to speak
That quality may only be seen, and no word can describe
Why, in this world, you are perfectly unique.

Or maybe you got out of the house today,
With a crippling fear that you might deteriorate
If someone looked you straight in your eyes,
But you're still out there, anxiety building, coasting the tides.
A victory to me may be your every day life
So if today all you did was get out of bed
Instead of fighting a constant strife in your own head
I'm rooting for you, do everything that is you.

All the beautiful people I'll never be
Are just as broken, believe me
We all have a closet full of skeletons.
Dance with the bones, come into your own element
I'm alone in a room with a circus full of elephants
Juggling knives and flaming clubs, then turn them all to doves
They throw peanut shells and I dance in a deadly dust
Flying until I fall off this adrenaline rush.
All the beautiful people, will never be me.

It's funny, you can be in bed with soft, warm sheets
While there's a fire going on right up the street.
On that corner, there's a man begging for cash
While some kids drive by who don't appreciate what they have
They stop by a burger joint to get a bite to eat
While the kid flipping burgers is working towards a dream
See that boy has been working seven nights a week
At the end of the night, he asks for a raise
But the manager knows he's stuck in a maze
Shaking his head no, this world just doesn't pay
Building you up just enough to never reach the end
With all the money in the bank and not a dollar to spend.

It's funny, you wake up and lace up your shoes
While a kid down at the park is playing the blues,
A man on that park bench suffers from the real blues
Just from picking up his morning paper and reading the news
He gets so sick of the rat race, he goes home,
And prepares for a rigged game of Russian roulette
But right before he puts that barrel to the side of his head
His phone rings, and has a good chat with old friend
In that one call he puts dead, his plan to be dead,
Goes to a clinic and gets help instead.

It's funny, while I was writing or as you were reading
The man in the next room could bleeding
Shouting for help, you didn't hear his call
Focused on all for one, amigos, we need to be one for all
If no one is listening, I'm just talking to the walls

There is a place where we all go,
Beyond the light and smile shown,
Through the tears of hard nights,
And within the fire burning through determined eyes.
Yes, there is a place where we all go.

My place looks so different than yours,
You wouldn't even recognize it
And I can't grasp yours.
They are all beautiful and real.

We put up so many shields to hide ourselves
Most opinions are not lucid but fabricated
By how we were raised or taught to think.
Go to your place and find you.
If you can't smile looking in the mirror,
Stop smiling to please others.

Sing like no one is watching and dance and love it
If that's the you, that you love
People may laugh, but they will appreciate you
If you open the door,
Who knows who will walk in.

I don't speak from fortune cookie advice,
I speak from  the life I've created.
Ask them about me, please,
I'm crazy, weird, original, innovative
Spending every work day singing and dancing and love it
Because that's the me that I love.

I can't enter your place you go.
Truthfully, I don't want to, it's yours.
Own it and all the rest will follow.

"Stop writing" says one-half of my mind
"Just quit it's a useless skill, just biding your time."
While the other half tells me to get back on my grind
Not using what you have is like the sighted walking blind
I'm the head case that got thrown into chaotic box
With a fox in socks, but I've got a lot of time on my hands
With all these rusty old clocks, just ask Mr. Knox.
He'd say I'm still off my rocker,
Been a poet since skeletons started stalking,
Been writing since the doors got so jammed, they stopped locking.

So judge me, we aren't seeing through the same eyes
On streets where eventually it all dies
I've been my own therapist, philosopher, psychologist.
All I've got is the skin on my back, I gave away my clothes
No one knows where this rabbit hole goes
I bring shame to even hatters being this mad
You'll need a lizard with a ladder to climb to the mindset I've had
Welcoming all into my Wonderland.

I'd grab the devil by the horns
Just to say I rode that bull
Never born legends, but molded to heroes
Life chisels  children to men in seconds
Beckoning demons, only time will tell your battle
With beetles in bottles or a half-million headed hydra
The sword is yours, own that fight, own the right
To go out into that good night