If time stood still for a month
I'd question the minutes I misused
If given a week, where I didn't have to think
I might find a second to relax
This American dream I'm suppose to be chasing,
Just feels like I'm racing between work and my bed
Building  a mountain of stress and a mountain of debt
And then I come home, underpaid, overworked
It's hard to not let a job, define my worth.

They build us up for years, kid, follow your dreams
Then tossed to curb, kid, your worthless, it seems
They don't understand, the price to move up these days
A 50 thousand dollar loan to get a degree
In a job that still doesn't pay.
Call me unmotivated, I'll ask for an offer worth my time
Where the pay is substantial and insurance isn't robbing me blind
"Go be a doctor, a lawyer, a suit"
And spend the next 8 years eating only Ramen noodle soup?

You don't get it, I get it. "My generation wants it all for free"
Then how come I feel like I have so many chains around me?
They combat us with fear, attack our esteem and integrity
Until you're weak and question your own abilities.
These kids pop pills because their stressed out from life
Have you seen the pressures thrown at them every night?
I'm not saying we're victims, I'm saying we just need help
We're a lost generation as past ones only fend for themselves

When you start, everything is wide open,
Your actions are completely limitless.
Hold onto that feeling for a moment.
As soon as you move, direction is created,
These moves have purpose even at random
Structure begins to form around them.
Are you a king? Are you a pawn?
Look closely, are they really that different?

I'll tell you the difference, if you'd like.
A pawn can move one or two spaces ahead
Some may make it to the other side,
But a king, a king can turn back if he wanted
For when he dies, that's the end of the ride.
With a queen going every and anywhere
And a rook keeping straight in his sights.
Remember, your actions are limitless
So when you move, be sure to move right.

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