The preservationist instinct called on me last Still sitting in the plaza watching the others walk past Ten minutes ago I should have strolled into class And right now I should be employed I should have written a book I should have plans for the summer But instead I took a short walk Onto a long dream Stopped short in the vestibule Forgot how to believe in me

I heard "our song" Or the song that I like to call "our song" On the radio in an airport Barnes and Noble Must have been like six or seven years ago Each and every time that we hang out The wait is too long but the duration is never long enough But like clockwork I will hurt you again and again But not 'till the end 'cause Oh, September, reaching through me so that I could get to you But then I misplaced my motivation You told me my skin looked terrible (as if I didn't already know) As if my neurotic self-consciousness Wasn't crippling enough as it is (but it is) I heard "our song" Or the song that I like to call "our song" On the radio in an airport Barnes and Noble Must have been like six or seven years ago Well I'm sorry that I can't compete With your thirty year old lover who makes independent movies But I've still got a personality, I think I won't deny this flawed biology You don't find me attractive and that's okay by me but Maybe we could just pretend at least (for a moment) I heard "our song" Or the song that I like to call "our song" On the radio in an airport Barnes and Noble Must have been like six or seven years ago And in the morning when we wake up We'll toss our hearts in a frying pan Turn the fire on S(alt) and P(epper) that shit Like the golden sun Cook some rice with it Let the yolks run

JP Café in the winter, 5 below, house roast to fight the weather Job apps and cover letters on my mind Needless to say at times remote I’ve felt much better But this is a damn fine way to spend an evening on the precipice so Head full of Emerson and Kerouac I fled Far from familiar spaces, from the place where I live Oh the romance of solitude out on the road So cut short by reality breaking my fantasy's mold And by the end I guess we got through it fine, but I still closed my eyes for the last step Through that closing door, to an open world, and the road forever more

My situation can speak for itself I’m a recent college grad who is just trying to help Out a little, where I can, if you’ll have me I left my friends in Boston all passed out on a couch And moved back to New Jersey, to my parent’s house in the suburbs Where I will live out my dreams unimpeded, maybe not, definitely not, [oh well!] Ohhhh I’m living with regrets but Ohhhh I’m hardly finished yet ‘Cause I’m gonna get a job that I love before I know it, maybe not Not Overqualified enough to make me viable As a real job candidate Living with zero expectations from a world that could Really use some immediate improvement Congratulations friend, I know you hate to boast But you’ve been offered a position at the Washington Post!? (FUCK ME!), well isn’t that swell Isn’t that cool man? God I hope I get a job before my fifth high school reunion Ohhhh I’m living with regrets but Ohhhh I’m hardly finished yet ‘Cause I’m gonna get a job that I love before I know it, maybe not

Cut against the grain and more splinters raise their heads and take first breathes They sing out in agony how it feels to be free The freethinkers get ostracized for provoking the petrified to use their heads ‘Cause to leave your intellect to atrophy it doesn’t pay in the long run We are not unlike each other, despite what some proclaim to be Together in this world we’re huddled, 7 billion leaves upon a big fucking family tree So when they put you in a box punch a hole and hop out And when they tell you you’re a heretic freely express your doubt And when they give you a gun and tell you shoot to kill You’ll be well equipped to exercise free will

Exchange my life’s ease For the blamelessness of poverty Put all my eggs in one basket, one casket Then drop’em all down the deepest deep sea canyon I can find If I was blind I would be all the wiser If I was deaf I would break down and cry If I was smarter or stronger or taller or more in shape I would still be happy most of the time You’ve got an office I’ve got a hot meal You’ve got assistants I’ve got radical zeal that makes me easy to marginalize You’ve got the benefit of being a legend in your own right Is relativism a ruse? A lie? To rationalize the fear inside? To keep me searching day and night For an answer that I know I can’t find I’ll never be satisfied with who I am ‘Cause I’ve already done so much less than I could have Obnoxious and arrogant I don’t see the draw, don’t see why I have any friends at all I’ve been a liar, But I’ve been hired Not going skyward, But at least I’ve got direction And for now that’s enough for me, in fact that’s plenty Two steps forward, trip the trap door Slide back three months, stand up and start again Quit looking over my shoulder I told her I wasn’t interested My friends are all saints for tolerating my bullshit Maybe someday I’ll pay them back for it Maybe someday I’ll pay them back for it.

How long were you planning on sticking around? I don’t have any other plans tonight and I was thinking to myself before that it might be more than fine If we took some time off from redundantly reinforcing Mutual fears of rejection and kicked it for a couple hours no tricks no hidden intentions Forfeit your communal features To stand with violent preachers Well I don’t see the benefit Oh these hateful people are bereft of love I’m kickin’ a brick wall just to remind myself that some things are immoveable I’m bitin’ my tongue at a bus stop while freshman libertarians talk about our country’s fall I’m finding it gradually harder to ignore the possibility That I won’t have a job by this time next year

In three words or a thousand the message still resonates ‘I don’t know’ So what do we do with these spring afternoons? We could go out to dinner or sulk in our rooms So the sun takes it’s leave so the night sky can breathe it’s sweet nothings to you and to me While the skyscrapers faces make ebony silhouettes and royal red day starts to bloom Is six in the morning too late to go home? ‘Cause sweet balmy Mondays awakened me so Just go on ahead, we’ll talk after the show Then we’ll know, oh we’ll know, we will know A thought that escaped the opaque veil of ‘maybes’ returns: “make room” ‘Cause your expectations leave you at the station All checking your wristwatch and tapping your shoe ‘Professional internship’ is the new overqualified without which I can do just fine I’ll swallow my pride ‘cause I know that in time all the things that I wish I will do, I will do There are problems in this world with solutions that are intelligible to me Gone are the times when I could afford to seek forgiveness in what I can’t see So hold on to your hat my friend ‘Cause if it falls off your brain will surely follow it You’ll claim what peculiar direction you can Options need not remain slim ‘cause we have a hand in making them

I’m leaving As soon as I can cram my essentials in a tissue box, Play leap frog with the goons in my way Before their heavy lips say “You have yet to live your life without wasting the bulk of your days” again Then I can be free, free to breathe in my anxieties, exhale them a sigh of relief Or at least, hold fast to a brief and fleeting mistake of a dream Until the sun rises, not a metaphorical sun, but the literal one Because work starts at seven and I left my uniform at home I guess I’m not as irresponsible as I like to think I am

You’re train’s moving forward And I’m standing still You’re on the cusp of a successful career I’m asleep at the Laundromat, paint chips and orange peels Litter the floor I feel three crossroads too far in the wrong direction Always thought you could squeeze enough time between two points to make up for a failure to plot your projection, but that was fallacious, I know I never felt cool around you You were miles above I had an inferiority complex that you insisted was misguided, which you tried to ensure me of But I wouldn’t listen; I was too busy tripping up socially To realize how great were the friends there in front of me, the ones who made fun of me but only in a light-hearted way that I didn’t understand at the time, I was too goddamned shy to laugh at myself like I needed to Once I said that a kettle that’s boiling will run out of water much faster than another that’s cold on the stove, but I’m learning quite quickly that dreams are a real thing, not simply a delusion to lighten ones intellectual load, I don’t wanna go home to the room that I know, still got nothing to show, for the life that I missed while I jotted these words in my room all alone, like I never did grow I abandoned the pulpit You embraced its romanticism I buried my shame in a pile of books Found the key to unlock my philosophical prison We numbered our days in unusual ways You with sketch pad and pencil Me with print on a page And yet to this day I’ve got a feeling, so strange, like you followed your dreams, I let mine slip away, but I know in the end The fact is I’ve changed. Found new ways to channel my hopes and ambitions, my convictions are stronger than ever, my thoughts all arranged And I’m just happy that we both turned out all right Congrats on the new job, I wish you the best And I know that you’ll be famous, put the pros to the test And I’m thankful to have shared my formative years with a friend like you We should grab lunch the next time we’re in the same city, but until then good luck and I’ll see you eventually Sincerely, your old friend