The Fight to Be Human

6th March, 2012

 

I’m not a master of what I survey

To death and disaster I am a slave

But I am the author of the words that I say

Why do I bother – it’s all trash anyway

 

I try to be truthful, or I think that I try

I may not be useful but at least I’m alive

Millions of letters spilled into the hive

All of them worthless except for this line

 

I hate the world they gave me

I hate the world they gave me

 

I stand on a mountain of pitiful prose

My mind is a fountain that pointlessly flows

They give you a trophy if you make the kids scream

But it’s such a joke to me how insipid I’ve been

 

I hate the world they gave me

I hate the world they gave me

 

I dig into my past now, I dig into my wrist

To recapture the last time I felt the knife twist

I kick at the shackles and heave at the chains

But I am the governor of my empty domains

 

I hate the world they gave me

I hate the world they gave me

 

Debt and disease they prey on my mind

And after they leave me I drink till I’m blind

I once had a refuge in music and wine

But now I am deaf to the word on the line

 

I cling to my records, I cling to my face

That fool in the mirror has taken my place

The funniest funerals, the saddest of births

Are all an excuse to indulge in my thirst

 

I hate the world they gave me

I hate the world they gave me

 

My body’s a riot, my mind’s the police

I feed myself lies to enforce some peace

Tell people I love them, shake idiots’ hands

And sometimes I hug them as custom demands

 

I used to believe in the goodness of man

But not anymore since I became one of them

I hoodwinked my woman and bought her a ring

But like the fight to be human, it don’t mean anything

Like the fight to be human, it don’t mean anything

 

 

 

Ghosts gather around me and pick at my seams

Like deaths in the family dogging my dreams

I’m spinning towards some infinite place

I wish I had done something good for the race

 

Poisonous postings, hate-songs in the streets

The government’s boasting of catching the cheats

I cringe into my collar, shrink into my shoes

As cheerleaders holler, “Which colour are you?”

 

I step up to the plate, yeah, with a match for a bat

And strike it alight and set fire to my hat

I won’t be dragooned by the whitest and worst

If I must shoot for the moon I’ll shoot myself first

And the harder it gets now, the softer I sing

But like the fight to be human, it don’t mean anything

Like the fight to be human, it don’t mean anything