Pick and choose who to take today
Leave the bad, burn the good
Do it for others, be ******.
Hold only for you like you should.
Gut mutts and let the dust kick up
Like the pure bred pup you are.
You're better because you say,
I'm less for being a certain way.
Kick the kids to the streets of the nation
And may they decrease surplus population
No problem there.

The rich hate you exist,
The poor hate that you try,
I'd develop a complex, if not already a complex guy.
The only hand out I've got
Is one flagging a cab to get home
The only kicks that I get
Are the clearance ones I have on
But I'm part of the problem
Just wait they'll tell you why

Create me as an enemy,
Squint and see through their eyes
When all I've ever wanted
Was enough to get by

If my words were like a gun
There would be smoke coming off my tongue
I don't think about life during a sunrise,
During a sunset or a star showered night.
I think about life eating a plate of nachos,
Drinking too much coffee with my wife.
I know in a big picture, I don't make the portrait
But when they torch these walls, I'll help restore them.
I can keep calm with a poker face like you,
But truth is, I'd rather be a joker getting wild with the twos.
I'm one of the few honest liars left
And we don't rattle. We don't rattle.

It's an odd feeling knowing the words,
That keep me up at night,
Won't matter once they're out, still unheard
Only said as the emotion lingering in my head.
I lie in bed putting my thoughts to rest
Sliding my finger to turn the page
Back to the real world behind the stage
Of a notepad and metophorical pen
Because a digital thought looks neat,
If only you saw the backspacing eraser
Scribbling out all my waste you'll never meet.
But we don't rattle. We don't rattle.

These are the things I think of when my eyes close:
I see a place where everything stands still,
A room full of thoughts that can ****,
Repeat the ding from brown noise,
Ping and clang keeping my mind going,
Words blowing through my brain
Like gusts just kicking up dust
For the sake of knowing they exist,
I need to attach life support back on my wrist
The chain strains and the clasp splits
You can't make sense of half of it
But if ever I wrote a line and you loved it
Then I guess it was worth all the rest.

What if I went back to school?
What if I barely see my family?
What if I don't really make it out ahead?
What if tomorrow I go to bed,
Then I just never wake up again?
What if I was happy with my life now
And everyone else who's got a problem
Can just turn their back and back down.
Okay, Ryan, relax it's just a suggestion.
The 502nd sheep just jumped over a fence
Then I cut off my mind from reflection.

It's okay to have bad days and feel good,
It's okay to have good days and feel bad.
You won't find all the answers
In the words written by someone else.
But in days of feeling lost they can help.
I'm a significant nothing in a grand scheme
Looking up to a sky wondering what it all means
I'm something to a few, I'm something to me
It's okay if I'm nothing to you.
I'm just a face in an ever passing crowd,
Hey it's getting late, may I sleep now?

We don't dream like we used to
Of mansions built on ocean sides,
Of the house with a picket fence.
I keep dreaming only of a life without debt,
Wake up son, you aren't there yet.
Wake up kid, you aren't anything yet.

We don't write like we used to
Donate a million words to tell a sentence
In a time where pictures spoke less.
Miss, I don't know if you noticed
But the language lost its romance.
No one must have noticed since,
As I write or type, I go unnoticed
I guess that's why they call romantics hopeless

We don't live like we used to
I guess that's just changing tides
And although I've known no different,
I miss the older times

You can say I'm nobody,
But I am something, I'm not a body,
I bring in a force, not of reckoning,
I don't have the devil by the horns
I'd rather scorn those who sit so serious.
We can burn down this city,
Torch the town to ash with me
But only to laugh that it really hit the ground
Don't worry, we are all survivors, all around.
I don't need your money, don't insult my mind.
I'm a soldier of a different kind.

You can say I'm nobody,
In a sea of passing people populating a plot
Because the train for me just doesn't stop,
Time doesn't move for me and it doesn't not
I'm here like you with a name attached
But from me to you, I'm just a faceless man
I'm not special, I didn't participate,
I didn't do good or great and most of your demons,
I am nobody, so how could I relate?

I could say you are nobody,
Or we can shake hands and be now known.
We can discuss our interests, the lives we've grown.
We can be special in a sense that I made you so,
We can have heated discussions making time slow
Or laugh until the sun dawns then sets.
But truly i must admit,  I'm in a hurry and must be going.
Sincerely,
a nobody someone almost met.

Sick of being stuck awake,
I should probably bake a cake,
Stuff a file inside, then sit for an hour of wait,
Another hour to cool, use the tool to pry my mind from this cage
Blow out the candles, the world becomes my stage
But I fall flat on a crowd with button eyes, deaf ears,
Rusted mental gears, and smiles looking at me queer.
"Hi I'm Ryan, I'm a poet. I belong here."
Reading to a generation that skipped reading,
Stuck feeding off of the **** for free
Asking for another handout that a past life made them believe
They deserved, too delicate, while I stay thick like corduroy,
Poking fun like I should take some ilk, you're too soft
I destroy you, still drinking mother's milk, you're soft as silk.
Don't make me spell it out, we are cut from different cloth.

I've sat with my life choices happy as an oyster
In a month that doesn't have an "R"
People walk through the door and try to raise my bar,
You couldn't come close, don't judge those who trudge
Through mud and sludge then take a second to coast,
I'm still a star while others whack the green,
Barely even keeping up with par.

I don't even have enemies, I get angry with my own mind
That tells me I should be on a steady grind
Then find myself too tired to stay awake
Too awake to fall asleep, let's write it out,
I never was one to be good at counting sheep
I took to counting breaths, counting beats,
Never couldn't count on me, have a seat.
Let's talk it out and bake a cake,
Another file filed so I can free this cage,
I flee the stage.

For all that's ever gone wrong
For all the times my life was a mess
I swear I forget how much I'm blessed
It's amazing that I'm still here breathing,
My kid knows my face and follows my name
I have a wife who loves me and a place of my own
I don't question the place I call home
And I'm reminded daily I'm never alone
This life is a struggle and I do gamble with death
And even if the weather chills my bones
I can still see my breath
So that must count for something.
Nothing can mean nothing, right?

I have a couple friends that I rarely talk to at all
Society tries to tell you there's no problem money can't solve
I watch parents dope kids with pills for being kids
The same ones who grow and don't know how to live
We like to blame problems on all but ourselves
But when we run out of blame who does that help?
Life is a game and those are the cards you're dealt
Go big or go home but leave the porch light on
Because you may return like an old song

You think I've never been broke,
Think I've been over my head unable to cope?
You aren't unique in your struggle
But no one is talking so you sit puzzled
Like everyone has all the pieces, you're stuck with no thesis
What would happen if we really took off fake faces
And stopped taking blue pills, stuck in a matrix
Most hands aren't royal flushes and aces
You sit steady bluffing with a confident stare
While no one around even has a pair.
"How are you?" They ask, you open your mouth,
Take a deep breath and ready to unwind,
Try to speak then smile and say "I'm fine"

There's a place in the woods
Only lit by the inhabitants I invade,
Where I swam in the water,
You swam in the water.
We laughed because we'd cry
We cried because we stopped laughing,
Reality swept us away but for a moment
We left that all behind.

Deep in Macalania, only one other saw,
I was afraid of the future,
You were lost in the past, only we didn't know.
Only knowing I put my faith in you,
As the fayth helped guide our hands
If they had not sent you, I don't think I could stand.

Our lips touched for a second,
Our guards dropped for a moment
And the world's calm was put on hold.
The end of the journey as scary as death
Only moving forward in hopes of new breath
"Just whistle and I'll come running"

The one where the car is underwater,
And the pressure starts to creek
While the water seeps through cracks,
The cold pooling at your feet
The seat belt is stuck and you pull with might
The air starts feeling thinner, lungs are tight
You break free, as your strength comes back,
The windows each begin to crack.
Remember,

Swim up, it just isn't your time.
Swim up, while there is still light.
Swim up, don't stop.

The one with six chambers
Five cold and one burning hot
Spun with a flick then a click
Tell me how much danger can drop
At the hit of a hammer all other sound stops
The lottery doesn't play nice, son
Sometimes he bangs out like a gun.

Swim up, it just isn't your time
Swim up, don't stop