Everybody Else

There were days I grabbed a guitar strung
With all my hopes & dreams,
& played until my fingers tore
To the fresh skin underneath.
Now, mostly I just go to work,
& practice all those ways
To be like everybody else.
Trapped inside a window room,
& the sun it surely shines.
But I can't feel a single thing
With these laptop hands & board-room eyes.

I've been snared inside a paycheck.
Locked inside for days.
Scratching out a living under
Someone else's name.
Outside there's rubber on the highway,
& fossils in the dirt.
Everything that is today
Is something we once were.
Ghosts left haunting empty houses –
Scaring just themselves,
& finding different ways
To be like everbody else.

Babe I need you more than ever
'Cause I can't tell how much I've grown.
Compare me to your own sweet measure,
Graphite & wood, or hurting bones.
Come & find me in the twilight
I'm sleeping but for you I'll rise.
Come tear me from this dark & dreamless
World of fear & rich man's lies.

Time jumped up & moved without me –
Shifting all that I have known.
Clowns run circles in the forest
Claiming all they see their own.

I hide under the patch work sheets,
The warmest of the prison cells,
& dream up all these ways to be
Like everybody else.

Green-eyed women circle 'round,
Like moths they take their turn.
Just like me they're waiting for
The sound of my return.
Ghosts left haunting empty houses,
Scaring just themselves,
& finding different ways
To be like everybody else.

Babe I need you more than ever
'Cause I can't tell how much I've grown.
Compare me to your own sweet measure,
Graphite & wood, or hurting bones.
Come & find me in the twilight
I'm sleeping but for you I'll rise.
Like morning break this restless slumber,
Awaken all that nests inside.