Sometimes this asshole style gets tough to reconcile with this image that I have of me being a person of some decency Sometimes it gets so dark I can't see anything Just black so thick I breath it in with my arms extended out in front of me So I can lean against something that shall remain unseen I don't believe that it's stability has been promised to me I don't aspire to much of anything I just want to keep my nose clean while I struggle to scrape by I must insist that I'm an optimist if I say that more than half the time I still feel half alive My stupid dreams have been collapsing from a lack of upkeep I've never been there, so I don't believe the future exists.

I could find a reason to hate every person that I see Sometimes I think that they're all onto me No matter what it is that I am trying to project This act is just as transparent as me I am too depressed for sex, I just want to feel your arms around me to know there is a human being that still is somewhat happy to see me 'cause I could go outside my house, surround myself with people everywhere but if nobody looks at me I start to think that maybe I'm not there And if they notice me I'm like a pillar or a coke machine Pay just enough attention to make sure they don't run into me But I could use a little more than that. I could use a little more than that. I have this reoccurring fantasy where all of my guitars have been smashed beyond repair and thrown into a fire and I wouldn't have to quit my bands because I wouldn't have any bands, and I wouldn't be the person disappointing everybody And I could simply listen to the music that I like without drawing constant comparisons to bullshit that I write and I could go to shows and be happy for my friends who try and try and sometimes get exactly what they've got coming to them. And I don't even know just what it is I'm going for, cause I don't even know what I enjoy consuming anymore cause I have grown so critical of even my own tastes, and if you dig in far enough you'll always find some quality to hate, and I have tried to fight that urge when it kicks in, but I am not the person that I was when I was seventeen. It's okay to be stupid and happy, but self-imposing ignorance is indefensible. And popular radio host says mediocrity is just a natural state of everything creative that is called into existence and it can take a fucking act of will just to escape it, but I don't want to bring anymore bullshit to the table, But popular radio host says also that it helps to work in volume to try and try at something til eventually you figure out a way to make your product to align with your own standards, and try hard not to quit under the weight of your own failures. And I don't try/work hard enough. And if nobody hears the record, cause the record don't get made and if nobody's at the shows because the shows never get played and if the record gets a bad review, because it sounds like shit then is it all my fault for writing it, or Michael Cunnane (Cut the Shit mobile recording studio)'s fault for recording it. And if the songs don't get finished because the songs aren't quite perfect, then how's that stack against a record full of songs with slight defects, that still approximate the thing that I was trying to say so that somebody else could hear it and be happy 'cause they've felt about the same.

I know lots of people who know lots of famous people who know other famous people and I could probably know them too, but I don't really think that I could put up with the pressure to look at myself in the mirror, in much closer proximity but still not any nearer. The contrast just might make me disappear And every time I play a show I feel intensely good for at least a couple minutes, but eventually the feeling always goes, and then I'm just a jackass screaming through a microphone, calling out my desperate plea, Won't somebody please look at me? and pat me on the back once in a while. The curvature of earth is such that you can only see so much at once The horizon's always in your sight and rainbows are just tricks of light and rain It's a carrot hanging from a stick, and you'll never catch up to it, you know And even if you did, you'd just get hungry again, so what's the point?

I think the thing it took to stop doing that myself is seeing how ridiculous it looked on someone else, Cause I used to know this guy, and I won't mention his name, but me and this other dude we acted pretty much the same, Neither of us would hesitate to throw ourselves around, and we never had a thought that we wouldn't say out loud, Like looking at a mirror, but with someone else's face, and that is what it took, for me to finally say This is a stupid way to be, and I wish it hadn't took this long to see that nobody takes us half as serious as we do. I used to know this girl that cut the shit mobile recording studio out of her arms, and sometimes roll up her sleeves to show off all her scars and one night at a party she got drunk and ran away. eventually we found her but we worried just the same. and when she sobered up, she didn't seem to care that she made all her friends go out looking for her everywhere and I guess that it makes sense if you're going to hurt yourself, that you wouldn't give a shit about anybody else. That's such a selfish way to be, and I hate that it reminded me of me. When I'm unhappy I just spread the burden out, to make everyone feel bad like I do. When I drove to national doughnut chain out on union street, I had a strange epiphany and it occurred to me that when I look at the world, at the ones who act like me, I never think, "now there is someone that I'd like to meet." I don't want to be the person that clings to someone else while they avoid addressing what is wrong within themselves. I wanna be the guy that can stand up on their own, not at national doughnut chain asking for a ride back home. (omitted lyrics)

Was it like standing on a dock, staring out at the cold, cold water underneath? You know the shock is going to suck, but you're burning up and your nerves just beg for some relief. The world is not the same as it was yesterday and it will never be again. Now hypotheticals can happen. And I lost sleep last night just planning how to reel you right back in, but then you cut the line. Now it's too late and it will always be too late. A broken down van in Massachusetts and a shitty hotel room, how I am forced to picture you. and I don't have a ton of details, but I probably could guess and I assume it would be true. But I wonder what you're thinking of when you're alone and everything's just shit, and did your body fight against you? Or did your muscles pull and play along until they all went limp, and did they think that it was just another hollow empty threat? I wish that I believed your ghost exists outside this fucking song. I wish that I believed in anything, in anything at all. There is no knowable causality like dominoes that fall, and I've gained nothing but the knowledge that the world's fucking awful. I wish that I believed your ghost exists, that I could talk to it, so second-person pronouns didn't just make me feel so damn stupid. and your last lingering impression is the vacuum that you left, and I'll be damned if I want anything to come pound out that dent.

If I had it my way, I would just work the whole damn day until I'm too tired to do anything but sleep and when I would drop, free from the burden of my thoughts I wouldn't have to think of how I've wasted all my time I now apprehend that this is a means without an end, and I am as far behind as I have ever been. Some would suggest that you should just do what you like best, but if they knew what that meant they'd probably disagree, 'cause I hate the things I love and they hate me. I spent the last six months living aboard a satelite orbiting miles above the surface of the earth broadcasting radio waves to a discrete antenna on an earthly robot that looked quite a bit like me and I see everything it sees through a small black and white TV and it does most of what I ask for it to do but I can't grab its robot jaws and issue one simple request, "Please just stop filling me with fuel."

You will be inside with your old TV the world you see restricted to 4:3 We used to see an opportunity in every flake's slow descent to the ground The children will be quick to tell you there's no two alike but all that I see is one damnable ocean of white When you succeed, are you ever happy, or does it burn like another defeat? Does it make you see the impossibility of fulfillment in the general sense? What good is a mansion if you still just live in your head? What's the perfect life if you spend it wishing you were dead? I wish that I had such imperfect vision. I wish that I saw things the way that you see them, with truncated truth, so shortly and sweetly and questions unasked, get answered discretely. Children will be quick to tell you there's no two alike but all that I see is one damnable ocean of white and when they melt in the sun they don't put up a fight