I'm anxious
I've been stuck in this minute
For what feel like a day
Trying to shake this headache,
Yet here it stays.
I'm a hair away from pulling out my follicles
Scraping molecules from my mind.
So I took a breath of air
In the open world, the demons and I share,
The land isn't so slanted making the playing field more fair.

There's too many people making too much noise
The girls and boys are playing, they're all saying
Something at the same time, at the same time
I'm trying to keep my thoughts in line
They all keep their cool so how come, I'm losing mine
Its too confusing, they're abusing the spot lights,
I hit a stop light, I don't not feel not right
Losing my grip and one little slip
Regret in the hind sight, once I have my mind tight.
Alright.

I wish they understood the pressure.
One little bother to overflow all my levers
I wish I understood the pressure
And, honest, I'm trying.
A minute past meltdown I'll be crying
Because I didn't mean it
You don't get it, I didn't mean it all
The smallest largest thing can tear down these walls
And sometimes I want you to see my side
And that's all.

How come we have to die
To show up in someone's mind
You can have a thousand friends
That all showed up after the end
Who pretend that they were there,
Who pretended that they had cared.
All the people standing over my hole,
I'm staring at you from six feet down here
But if this life isn't, why believe death is fair.

They keep speaking of tragedy
Being the only way to really promote peace
Cooking enough enemy meat to have a feast
But the enemy is me when the enemy is you
Both told we are right, both believing it's true.
When we both fell to the floor its only then we knew
We truly only have one life to lose.

Remember being kids? Remember where we lived?
Living the only place we could afford to go,
Spent eight years getting out of the mold
So when this anxiety and panic even try to take hold
I use those cards I was dealt to never fold.
Im not asking for a thing because everything
I ever had was mine
And if it all fades away that's absolutely fine
The memories are the only thing I won't leave behind.
And that's absolutely fine.

I talk to these gods in times of trial and success
They **** me in times of swimming
But give me a melody to keep singing in my mind.
I've been skating on thin ice on waters filled with debt
Hoping I can hold my breath while this washes over.
I've been sober long enough
To see when people drink too much power
Dancing stupidly in the traffic of a nothing life
In charge of nothing, seeing the whole sea
From the mole hill they imagined.
Imagine that.

You're my song of the day, not metaphorically,
Literally the tune blasting through my ears as I write.
As the girl does yoga on TV
showing pictures aesthetically pleasing to my mind
Knowing work is right around the corner, here I'm fine
Mulling over the problems of the morning
Only to be forgotten with clock's ticking time.

I leave it all at the door in a futile escape
Once I cross that line, that is where they wait.
Don't be concerned all the fronts are fake
The real issues aren't spoken in anyone's public wake
Smiling like suns in children's artwork
Hung on a fridge, that will work in the world I live

Sitting in a circle, we were just sixteen
A few dumb kids figuring what this life would mean.
Andy says he's going to community college,
Jimmy is going out of state,
As if these plans were going as perfect as they seem
Matt took a year off trying to search for knowledge
I took a similar rope just waiting for fate
As if we can succeed just stuck in a wait.

Andy took general courses, working a minimum grind
He stays up all night, caffeine pills keeping him online.
Jimmy got a degree in something with no market
Thirty grand has him working two jobs
Feeling like seeking education left him robbed
Cleaning up after the generation that cut him off
Matt and I keep passing ideas that we never do
Thinking school might be worth it
Still deciding a future  but even the new
Leaves a taste of the same place we knew

A few average kids didn't stand a chance
Took a few different roads all led to the same
If you have the experience, you lack their degree
If you have a degree, it's two years experience they want to see
So nobody trains you and nobody learns
Now they have a following believing the world doesn't turn
I'm so lost in these politics I can barely find my way home

They didn't give you feet
To try to fit in shoes tied too tight
Looking at a blank page,
Only reading what others write.
This is your world, don't waste it
Trying to be something your not
We have enough flocks, beeping in unison robots.
Even as I write words I feel as generic as my past self

"Let me guess, Ryan, every person has potential?
It's easy to write the next poem using a stencil
Of the last fifteen years of your life, right?
Or maybe tell me about your father again
And block him from reading it like the chicken **** you are
No matter how many demons battled, you don't ever win.
Until you start to man up or even in these puddles you'll be a drowner"
But here I still stand a loner, lacking a fan base
Lacking a realistic view of life, still a closet I rarely face
"Another lost case, wearing that victimized millennial cap"
But I'm trying to fight a system while most these kids nap
I'm sick of defending myself to my mind, I'm furious
"Then maybe you should take more than writing serious"

They didn't give me this mind
To pull my skull into a head case
Look at this page full of ink drained
Stained only on what I'm writing
Turning my back on a world too wasted
With people faker than the flavors they're tasting
We have enough flocks, none I'm ready to flock to
Even as I write these words I feel as generic as my past self

I stayed up late tonight,
last night too,
the day before that,
caffeine cranking my gears,
family making me see days through.
on the coldest nights, where I feared failure,
I looked to my right and always knew
I'd fight every battle with you.

I get stuck and erase parts, I felt wouldn't fit us well.
imagine all the lines deleted, the things I never tell.
the illuminated nothing that strangles at my soul,
it speaks to me in phrases yet I never let it be whole.
as I walk down this hallway, a hallway of five feet,
to a room I know contains the best thing I'll ever meet
Don't ask me which,
I couldn't choose, they each have me in a hold
so tightly I am wound, I would let all else go.

I'm a child for being lost in here
I'm a man for walking through the door
looking at most of you, I wonder what you are.

There's wind in your sails, son
But there is sin lurking in the waters
This ice might freeze your veins
When you're on high tides with just a dream,
Whether it's smooth sails or drowned on a rock bed
Remember to always keep a level head.
Most of those speeding bullets are flying depressed
What if the fame of their mental unrest
Continues to grow and the crowd following
Is the food making the illness continue to manifest?

I'm paying to make the warm days stay cool
I'm paying to make the cold days warm
And I keep my cool because it's out of my hands
All I can do is fix it or buy it brand new
Until I come to that day when these cards all come due
I feel lost because I work to eat Ramen as fuel
That's just being dramatic, I eat because I like it too.
But I wish people were more honest about these feelings
Instead of the fake smile, fake "great" chat.
Shake their hand never knowing the weight on their back
Let's be real, this is exactly where I'm at:

I put down the pen for a month to be a work slave
That doesn't mean I don't crave to jot these thoughts
It means I don't hold the energy for me
I spend my free time pulling grey hair looking at the dark circles
That I wave to in a mirror fogged up when I breathe
"How can I help you and how am I wrong?"
A professional drug dealer, a professional nothing.
Think I'm important? I think you'd replace me like nothing.
A Russian roulette and not a single chamber is bluffing.
I put down this pen for ***** scraps of parchment
That a man used to get synthetic numbness sent
Through his veins and I miss that idiot some days.
And I'm sorry. Man, I'm sorry.