This Bad Reputation Lyrics

My reputation proceeds me, I can't grow past it
Being easy is easy, I swim up the river to the stars
Behind the mountains where machines need me
To be cool when all is gutted
Infernal mess
Hold you're opinions out the window
Catch a windburn
You have no heart, no ethos to slow you down
You who would stand on your brothers face to catch a fleeting memory
Or a camera shot
Catch a cold shoulder permanent


I'm sensitive like the rain forest
Like Ayatollah Khomeini's deepest wishes
I need a second chance, a second face, a second heart, a second Earth
I need a second chance...


I'm only alive for a second which is why
If I ever stop kicking, the leeches are at my heels
The river is burning, out there
There is fun to be had without tourniquets
Amongst rats, the referee is always a cat
Amongst men, the referees don't matter
In a past life I slayed the monster with one hand and saved the city
Turned around and burned it with the other
We didn't deserve peace
We deserved mounds of clay, grease
While everyone else was running so fast
And they caught insects in their teeth
They sound like crickets, and I'm still at the gate
Did I do the right thing?
Should I call off the locusts?
Should I Twitter up a storm, or remain focused?
This game is full of pits and mazes with no exits
Back at the beginning, digging with fingernails still bleeding


The other day, someone thanked me for making real music
My response, "Art imitates life."
The worse the music it is, the realer it is
I'm a fake
On pieces of wood, pinned, like an executed slave or a bug
That might be true, if the sun would only show
I don't wanna be real, like a prison guard or bank-teller or a politician
This is my castle, only ghosts can live here
I had to kill everyone to save the city


God grant me the MIC to hack away at negative change
Can you read bones?
I can read a face like a milk carton
Like a cliff
Like a trash heap with fresh food in it
And a blank face forming in the center


This poem was written for a machine gun
But the weapon jammed, and my generation don't know how to fix things