Too Scared To Quit

I've heard it said that youth is wasted on the young and I'm beginning to feel the sting of these words as it becomes my own reality.

I'm barely 21 and I spend my time working, going to class, stressing over money and how I'm going to pay my bills and feed myself. What kind of life is this for someone so young? The weight of all these burdens weighs heavily on my mind to the point that I can't concentrate on doing well in my classes, let alone figuring out which major I want to pursue, if any. I feel almost completely without direction. Just spinning my wheels and digging myself an even deeper rut. I should just suck it up, pick something, and buckle down. "Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do." But says who? That seems like such an American concept. "Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do...to get ahead, to make money, to be happy." I don't buy it. It always comes back to money, greed, capitalism. If you don't comply, you're some kind of freaky hippie, or a bum, and they'll do their best to keep you down.

I can't take it. I feel like almost everything I do in my life just gets in the way and prevents me from doing the things that I love. The things that make me happy. The things that are truly important. Do you really think this life is long enough to spend even a moment doing something that knowingly makes you unhappy? How about several moments? Days? Weeks? Years? I thought not.

I work to make money, to go to school, to get a better job, to make more money, to buy more shit I don't need and then I will have to work harder and neglect my family to make even more money to buy still more shit for my family that will be outdated and more expensive in a matter of months. But everyone has to do things they don't want to right? As long as you keep feeding that golden arrow of consumption, you're doing your part.

I will live my life as such, even though all I want to do is make music with my friends, make new friends, strengthen bonds with old ones, be in love, see the world, and make sure my family and friends are happy and safe. Is that to much to ask? Most of the time it seems like it.

Falling from the top floor your lungs
fill like parachutes
windows go rushing by.
People inside,
dressed for the funeral in black and white.
These ties strangle our necks, hanging in the closet,
trapped in the cubicle;
without a name, just numbers, on the resume stored in the mainframe, marked for delete.
Please take these hands
throw them in the river,
wash away the things they never held
please take these hands,
throw me in the river,
don’t let me drown before the workday ends.
9 to 5! 9 to 5!
And we're up to our necks,
drowning in the seconds,
ingesting the morning commute
lost in a dead subway sleep
we lie wide awake in our parent’s beds,
tossing and turning.
Tomorrow we'll get up
drive to work,
single file
with everyday
it's like the last.
Waiting for the life to start, is it always just always ahead of the curve?
Please take these hands
throw them in the river,
wash away the things they never held
please take these hands,
throw me in the river,
don’t let me drown before the workday ends.
Just keep making copies
of copies
of copies
when will it end?
it'll never end,
'til it gets so bad
that the ink fills in our fingerprints
and the silhouette of your own face becomes the black cloud of war
and even in our dreams we're so afraid the weight will offset who we are
all those breaths that you took have now been canceled in your lungs.
Last night my teeth fell out like ivory typewriter keys
and all the monuments and skyscrapers burned down and filled the sea.
save our ship
the anchor is part of the desk
we can't cut free,
the water is flooding the decks
the memos sent through the currents
computers spark like flares
I can see them.
They don't touch me,
touch me.
Please someone,
teach me how to swim.
Please, don't let me drown,
please, don't let me drown.