[Intro]

Everything that's alive grows from a tiny seed
You know the little tomato seeds you and Nancy planted in your garden?
And how they grew into nice, red tomatoes?
(Yeah)
Well, it's like this...

[Verse one]

He’s fed up with all of this bullshit
Got a full clip and a finger on the trigger about to pull it
Like "Motherfucker, I be the coldest
The temperature of my heart is lower than any winter solstice"
Sometimes when he smokes an L
He thinks to himself:
“If I had coke to rail would I be broke as hell?
Or going to jail?
Begging my friends to pay whatever price they posted for the bail?
I don’t want to be alone in a cell
I’m a ghost in a shell"
These thoughts haunt you, but no one can tell
And nobody knows how you feel
When you're as heavy-hearted as he is
You keep those inner woes to yourself
My life is a blessing within a curse
So I best be the first to admit it, lest we converse
And you have to figure out the hard way
That I don’t live the life of the party
I only partake when y'all bombard me
With invitations to leave the house and go smoke the trees
But I've got more important things to think about
These people assume that with my music I’m happy
I didn't choose this
The only reason I do it is 'cause it’s therapeutic
I want to stop but to tell you the truth, I’m addicted to it
When pain comes it’s the only thing that can get me through it
Now I write songs not for the enjoyment
I’m the sunburn and that shit is the fucking ointment
But it’s also my poison
It's poised and pointed to fill me with disappointment
The second I feel the pendulum spiraling out of orbit
‘Cause I’m bound by the flesh
Drowning in the depths of a black abyss
On my back, floundering for breath
(Bad trips)
They keep the pulse pounding in the chest
Concentrate and try to make it through without a scratch
I’m a shadow of my former self
Not the image of a man but a portrait of hell
Burning within you

[Interlude]

Now, remember how I told you the hen lays an egg?
When the baby grows up to be an old man and dies, they bury his body in the ground
But his soul...

[Verse two]

"I can’t even look in the mirror anymore, it disgusts me
All I see is a monster, someone I don’t want to be
When I lie to a family that’s done nothing but love me
And look after me I feel the mask of my sanity rupturing
How am I supposed to look my little sister in the eye
And tell her everything is fine?
(Hypocrisy)
And the worst part of it all
Is she can see right through that dishonestly woven web to my core being
Why do I entertain the black widow spider in me?
Why do I have to get high every god damn night of the week?
What kind of example am I setting for literally
The one person in life who looks up to me?
Trusts me?"
His thoughts are so scattered
God, it’s so tragic
He’s got no standards to stop him from going back
To his lucid, self-destructive old habits
"Don’t try to talk him out of it, doc'
He won’t have it
‘Cause right now it feels like he’s lost the only talent
That he tricked himself into believing that he had in high school
When he got to college it all vanished
And for the first time in his life he felt stranded
Look, calm down, Dante
Don't panic
We’ll find a way to use these cards to our advantage
We always do
When we look back, we’ll be laughing in the rear view
With the train engine growling
Smoke piling
Abandon the Black Hawk flatlands of Nebraska
Where flashbacks seem to run rampant
You’re exhausted
Travel saddleback for as long as you think is possible
Finish that novel that you always seem to talk about
And don’t respond when they try to get you to hollow out
There’s nothing left for them to offer us
You know that now
I’d rather see you live in solitude
And have a chance at rebuilding your life than watch it fall to ruin"

[Chorus]

(If I died tonight)
Would I be satisfied with my life today?
(If I died tonight)
Would they still hear my voice from beyond the grave?
(If I died tonight)
Would I be satisfied with my life today?
(If I died tonight)
Could my words touch your life from beyond the grave?
(If I died tonight)
Would I be satisfied with my life today?
(If I died tonight)
Would you still hear my voice from beyond the grave?
From beyond the grave
From beyond the grave

[Verse three]

I remember being in the fourth grade
Writing like a madman in my world of fantasy and cyberspace
To make a storyline unravel through my poorly worded novels
Then record them shortly after
This balance was in the world when I was younger
The heart is a lonely hunter but I’m no Carson McCullers
(No)
The Singer to my Antonopoulos
Visiting hours grow shorter as I walk with him
I think about this as the train rumbles off
Thick smog in its wake, a chilly Yoknapatawpha wind
Relationships change and it gets harder to maintain
Authentic dialogue is impossible
But things aren't the same as when I started
I hear so much rage in my own product
That I’m not even proud of it anymore
I’m ashamed of my every sonnet
How they haunt me and keep me from moving on
The toll it takes on my conscience is enormous
A result of the transformation I went through while in college
Though I promised myself that I’d be unwaveringly honest
Enough for the poems to truly reflect the man behind them
It's like Stephen Daedalus in A Portrait of the Artist
Only I’m David Robson leaving Texas instead of Ireland
It’s the first day of autumn
The wildlife is silent
The farmers have abandoned their crops and traveled northward
It gives the land a certain calmness
As if the whole world’s holding its breath for a moment
I never did finish that novel
The train no longer runs and the asylum is vacant
I don’t remember why they closed it
But I know the influenza notice still sits in my desk drawer
“Es semper obseratum”
I heard a rumor from a black-capped chickadee
That nothing of great importance is ever truly lost
It’s been said that up north in Dunnet Landing there’s an island
If you look hard enough for it, you might find him
But as for me, I’ll be tending to my garden
On a plot of land that overlooks a peaceful reservoir
As the breeze gets colder
Watching as the jacarandas start to shed their color
When the last leaf falls
It reminds me of survival, inspires me to be stronger
Every tree in the forest becomes an outstretched palm